


IT Tumblr Prompts!

by strictlyamess



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: F/M, Fluff, M/M, One Shot Collection, Tumblr Prompts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-28
Updated: 2018-07-23
Packaged: 2019-05-29 16:23:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 32,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15077069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strictlyamess/pseuds/strictlyamess
Summary: A series of Reddie (and Benverly, and Stanlon) one-shots, or: a little IT fluff in these trying times.





	1. Mating Season (Reddie)

**Author's Note:**

> Hey all! This is a series of one-shots that I've written for Tumblr, transposed for the Archive. Most are Reddie - any that are not will be clearly marked. These no longer exist as individual fics on the Archive - I've moved them all here for easier viewing :)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The wildest animal at the zoo on the eighth grade trip is Richie Tozier.
> 
> Eddie has some mixed feelings about that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "so… did you miss me?" and “why do i love you?"

 

 

 

“Eds!" Richie Tozier cried out, loud even though he was sitting right next to Eddie on the cramped bus seat. "Eds, Eds, Eds!"

"What?” Eddie snapped, wound up from hours of being jostled. School buses were full of germs, and Eddie was sure he’d contracted at least twenty diseases just from spending fifteen minutes on this yellow death trap. Three hours was unthinkable.

And then, of course, there was the unfortunate matter of his seat partner.

When they’d boarded the buses, Eddie had tried his best to jockey himself into position behind clean, quiet Stan, but Richie had pushed his way in between them at the last second, insisting upon spending the next three hours “as close to [my] Eddie Spaghetti as possible”. Eddie had almost thrown up then and there.

He wasn’t upset about it because he didn’t like Richie. He liked Richie very much - in fact, most of the time he liked Richie enough to ignore his annoying habits, like speaking three decibels louder than was strictly necessary or making crude jokes about sex at inappropriate times.

Lately, though. Lately, sitting next to Richie had thrown him into a weird sort of anxiety spiral, and he wasn’t really sure what was causing it. Ever since last summer, when they’d all done whatever crazy amazing thing they did together (Eddie was fuzzy on the details of it, for some reason), every time Richie’s arm brushed Eddie’s side, or Richie’s thigh pressed against Eddie’s on the bench of the lunch table, Eddie had felt a little bit like he was on fire. He had no idea why, and he wasn’t sure he cared to think long enough on it to find out.

Obviously, then, three hours squished against Richie in a bus seat was nothing short of excruciating.

“It’s mating season,” Richie said gleefully, much to Eddie’s confusion, annoyance, and great embarrassment.

“What are you talking about, dumbass?” Eddie asked. He didn’t have to look in a mirror to know his ears were bright red; he was well aware of all the little ways that his body betrayed him when Richie started in on something like this.

“At the Wildlife Park,” Richie explained, bouncing a little in his seat. “It’s spring. Maybe we’ll get to see some of the animals doin’ it.”

“Gross!” Eddie exclaimed, shoving Richie against the window and wondering why his stomach suddenly felt like it was in his throat. “You’re so gross, Richie, oh my God.”

Richie cackled, grabbing Eddie’s hand and licking it. Eddie shrieked and withdrew, wiping his hand anxiously on Richie’s shirt before drawing it back in.

“I know exactly what moose mating calls sound like, too,” Richie continued, a terrible smile on his face. “I hear them every night when your mom--”

“Shut the fuck up!” Eddie slouched down in the bus seat, livid.

“Aw, Eds,” Richie began, but he was cut off by their science teacher, Mr. Williams.

“All right, we’re just about to the Maine Wildlife Park, so I want to announce the groups for today’s field trip. When you get off the bus, we’ll walk to the water fountain by the Visitor’s Center, you’ll find your chaperone, and you’ll stay with them until we get back on here in the evening. Understood?”

“Understood,” the entire eighth grade mumbled back disjointedly.

“All right.” Mr. Williams looked at his clipboard. “Four groups. First group, you’ll be with me, and that’s Angstrom, Arrowsmith, Bowers, Bowie, Conklin, Corcoran, Denbrough, Dunton, Earl, and Fadden.”

Eddie looked sadly across the aisle at Bill. No friends, and stuck with Henry Bowers? Yikes, alphabetical order had really screwed Bill over.

“Next, with Ms. Marsden: Gordon, Hagarty, Halloran, Hanscom, Hocksetter, Huggins, Jagermeyer, Johnson, Kaspbrak, and Kersh.”

This time, Bill was looking at Eddie sadly. Eddie didn’t have Bowers, but Hocksetter and Huggins together were just as bad. At least he’d have Ben with him...and he would have had their friend Mike, too, but unfortunately Mike’s grandpa had yet to be persuaded to take Mike out of homeschool and put him in the public system. Alas.

Well, at least Ms. Marsden was nice - as language arts teachers went, anyway.

“Third group, with Mr. Doyle: Laurie, Marsh, McCall, Mellon, Mueller, Phillips, Ripsom, Rogan, Rogers, Sadler.”

Beverly groaned really loudly from her seat. Mr. Williams shot her an exasperated look, and then continued.

“And finally, with Mrs. Emerson, we have Starrett, Taylor, Tozier, Unwin, Uris, Webb, Winterberger, Wolcott, Wormwood, and Zachariah. Again, find your chaperone when we park and get off the bus. It shouldn’t be more than three minutes, now.” Mr. Williams sat back down, and there was an immediate roar of discontent. No one wanted to be separated from their friends, the Losers least of all...well, most of the Losers, anyway.

“I can’t be with Richie,” Stan complained, “he’ll just make jokes about animal genitals all day! I wanted to record the ring-necked pheasants in my bird journal, and I swear, if he ruins it or vandalizes my stuff before we get there--”

“Nerd,” Richie stuck out his tongue at Stan. “Where do birds keep their dicks, anyway? Do birds even have dicks?”

“Cool it, Mr. Tozier,” Mr. Williams warned without turning around.

“Won’t happen again,” Richie called back. This was a very rehearsed line of his, and it was starting to come off as insincere...and it was insincere, but Eddie thought it would benefit Richie to be less obvious about it.

“It’ll happen again within five minutes,” Mr. Williams responded, resigned.

“Yeah, probably.” Richie sank down into the seat, unusually sullen as a sea of angry 13 year old voices rang out around him. Eddie peered at him curiously - usually he’d be more than thrilled to have hours upon hours to grate on Stan’s nerves, but apparently not this time.

“You alright, Rich?” he asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

Richie shrugged. “I wanted to be in your group, is all.”

Oh. Eddie was surprised, and a little flattered - he’d honestly not considered that option.

“Thanks, I think?” Eddie tentatively put a hand on Richie’s forearm, shivering a little at the more intimate contact. “Next time.”

Richie still looked put-out. “I guess.”

Before Eddie knew it, they were being shepherded off of the bus, walked to the fountain meeting place where tour groups departed from, and dragged into their field trip groups. Eddie hadn’t particularly enjoyed sitting next to Richie on the bus, but he found that he missed him in a pretty immediate way once he was gone - especially with the looks that Patrick Hocksetter and Belch Huggins were giving him.

He moved closer to Ben, and hoped for the best.

It didn’t come.

The groups began to move off in separate directions pretty immediately (the Losers had all shared a fair amount of despondent looks amongst each other, and Richie had gone so far as to blow kisses to each of them). Eddie and Ben’s group shuffled off to the left after a young-ish looking red-headed tour guide that looked a little bit like an older version of Bill. Eddie grabbed Ben and tried to push towards the front, both to be able to hear the guide and to be nearer to Ms. Marsden in case anything went awry, but he was stopped by a hand on the back of his collar.

“Going somewhere, fairy boy?” Belch Huggins’ gross breath was unmistakable. Eddie gulped.

“Leave us alone, Belch,” Ben tried, valiant as ever, but he was grabbed in turn by Patrick Hocksetter.

“In the woods, no one can hear you scream,” Patrick said, emotionless in a way that gave Eddie an extreme case of the heebie-jeebies.

“They can see you eat shit, though, so...there’s THAT.”

"Who the f--"

Patrick didn't get to finish his sentence. Richie was back, for whatever ungodly reason, and in a fit of what could only be described as idiocy, he'd shoved Patrick off of Ben and into a nearby tree.

Belch turned on Richie as Patrick struggled to right himself, and Eddie stared at the situation, frozen and aghast.

“Trash boy,” Belch growled. “You’re not in this group.”

“I am now,” Richie said, sounding way more confident than he looked, “and if you touch me or Haystack or  _especially_  Eds, I’m gonna let the whole eighth grade know the good news about what I caught you and Henry Bowers doing by the field house when I skipped social studies to go smoke, Hocksetter.”

Patrick, who was making his way back over, immediately paled and backed up. “Belch. No-go on this.”

Belch eyed him suspiciously. “Why?”

“No-go,” Patrick insisted, grabbing Belch’s arm. “Let’s go look at some fucking animals or whatever. Shit.”

Belch looked livid, but he moved towards Patrick anyway. “You got off easy this time, Tozier, but next time….look out.”

“Was that a glasses joke?” Richie called out after them, but they were too far away to feel like they had to respond.

Ben, Richie, and Eddie were left staring at each other in silence.

“Well,” said Ben after a long moment, looking between Richie and Eddie knowingly, “I wanna go catch up to Ms. Marsden to see what I missed. I’ll see you guys in a minute.”

“But--” Eddie began to protest, but Ben waved and moved curtly up the path ahead of them, not interested in hearing what Eddie had to say.

That left Eddie alone with Richie. Again.

“So...did you miss me?” Richie asked, grinning sheepishly.

“You weren’t even gone for five minutes,” Eddie said, crossing his arms. “What’s the matter with you?”

Richie shrugged, and shoved his hands in the pockets of his too-baggy cargo shorts. “It’s like I said. I wanted to be in your group.”

Eddie shook his head, absolutely baffled. “Why?”

“The moose enclosure is first for you guys, I think.” Richie changed the subject deftly. “That’s what the guides were muttering to themselves about before we left, anyway. Let’s go check it out.”

“Richie--” Eddie tried again, but Richie had grabbed ahold of his hand and was guiding him firmly towards the moose exhibit, or whatever.

When they finally caught up with the class, they were treated to the sight of exactly….one moose, with a disappointing lack of antlers.

“Moose are usually solitary animals,” the tour guide was explaining, “but during mating season, females swarm around males as a sort of harem.”

Richie squeezed his hand, and Eddie jumped - he’d forgotten that their fingers were still laced together.

“Richie, let go of me.”

“Are you even listening at all?” Richie’s face was alight. “Mating season? Moose harem?”

“When two males are interested in the same female, they’ll usually fight it out, which is pretty intense. Alice here is pretty big, right? Well, male moose are even bigger...and their horns are pretty deadly if used right.” The tour guide gestured to the moose behind him when he said Alice, and Richie bounced excitedly on the balls of his feet.

“Moose fight!”

Eddie tried to tug his hand away, but Richie wasn’t interested in letting go. “Richie, what the fuck?”

The group was moving towards the next exhibit, but Eddie wasn’t interested in moving until he’d gotten an explanation from Richie. This clingy behavior was out of character in a really concerning way. Usually he’d just insult Eddie’s mother, pinch at Eddie’s cheeks and move on, but today…

Well, no, not just today. Now that Eddie was thinking about it, Richie had been touchier than usual for a couple of weeks now - slinging his arm around him at lunch, or pulling him over to sit next to him during movie nights. It was probably just more obvious today, because they weren’t split up by different classes and assigned seats.

What the hell was going on?

“Whaddya mean, Eds?” Richie smiled, but his fingers started to tap against Eddie’s hand in a way that Eddie knew meant that Richie was nervous. (Richie fancied himself a good actor, but Eddie knew him better than anyone, and as such had catalogued all of his little tells.)

“Don’t call me that.” Eddie forcibly yanked his hand out of Richie’s and glared up at him, frowning. “Why have you been acting so weird?”

A little color drained from Richie’s face. “Weird?”

“Yeah, like...touchy and stuff.” Eddie didn’t understand any of what Richie was doing, least of all how nervous he was right now. He looked like Eddie felt around him, nowadays. “What’s up?”

“They’re going to see the swans without us--” Richie tried, but Eddie wasn’t having it.

“Richie.”

“Swans mate for life you know,” Richie said, quiet and unexpectedly sweet. Eddie felt his heart skip in his chest, stared at Richie’s slight frown, disheveled curls, and furrowed eyebrows that were causing his glasses to slip down his nose, and came to a realization that almost made him pass out.

Oh, FUCK.

“Just like me and your mom!” Richie finished, crowing, and Eddie almost screamed.

“Why do I love you?” he blurted, mouth miles ahead of his mind. Immediately, he clapped his hands over his mouth, mortified. Richie stared back at him, mouth hanging open stupidly.

Well, there was that friendship down the tubes.

“Sorry, what now?” Richie asked after a moment of terrible silence.

“Nothing,” Eddie hissed, storming off. “We have to see the swans.”

“Eds, come on!”

“Swans, Richie!”

Richie laughed, surprised and joyful, and followed after Eddie with a gigantic dorky smile on his face.

“We could be swans, you know, Eds,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows exaggeratedly and grabbing Eddie’s hand again. Eddie made no move to pull away this time, though he did make a point of digging his fingernails extra hard into Richie’s hand. (Richie flinched, but did not complain.)

“Um, no we couldn’t?” Eddie was so lost in the swirl of feelings and thoughts in his brain that he couldn’t for the life of him understand the meaning of what Richie had said. “What are you talking about?”

“It’s mating season,” Richie said simply, and Eddie shoved him into a bush.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> skeletonscribbles.tumblr.com <3


	2. Taco Tizzy (Reddie)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Free Taco Day, and Eddie's going to flip shit if supplies run out just before it's his turn to order.
> 
> Hopefully the guy in front of him in line will be able to cool him down a little bit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt Phrases for this: Phrases: ‘pipe the fuck down asshole’, ‘how about you make me’, and ‘fight me you attractive stranger’ <3

Eddie Kaspbrak couldn’t fucking believe it. 

It was October 4th, also known as the best day of the year, also known as Taco Bell’s Free Taco Day…and his faculty meeting had run late.

Granted, it always ran late. Mrs. Keery, who taught 7th grade math, always had SOMEthing to complain about, and that usually ran for at least half an hour on top of their normal hour’s worth of school news and initiatives - but Eddie had been hopeful, this time, that everyone would keep their mouths shut and he could slip out in peace as soon as the principal let them go.

Eddie’s luck was terrible, so of course things took a million times longer today than they were supposed to. Mrs. Keery was in rare form, ranting and raving over the pitfalls of inquiry based learning (and she was wrong - every teacher under the age of 30 knew she was wrong, but they let her say her piece anyway), and then after that, the new social studies teacher on his team had had a few questions about Powerschool (she was so fucking young, oh my God, nothing like a daily visceral reminder of the fact that you’re nearing thirty), so by the time he was out the door, it was almost five…and the free taco promotion ended at five thirty.

In his twenty-eight years of life to date, Eddie didn’t think he’d ever driven so fast.

And now…now, after all he had been through, they were announcing that they were almost out of taco supplies, and that not everyone that was currently in line would get one.

FUCKING hell.

Eddie pulled out his phone, ready to type out a furious tweet to Taco Bell corporate (and probably have some early-twenties intern reply to him with a meme he didn’t understand), but he was forced to stop short when the guy in front of him in line turned and put a hand over Eddie’s phone screen.

“What. The fuck. Do you want,” Eddie snarled, looking up to see who was going to be on the receiving end of his fury.

The man in question was tall - lamppost tall, and similarly skinny, but surprisingly sturdy in spite of all of that. He was smiling, and Eddie could see that his teeth were janky as hell - the two front ones were especially prominent. That combined with the guy’s thick fucking grandpa glasses made him look a little bit more caricature than human.

And those CLOTHES, good lord. He was wearing a gray t-shirt that said  _‘It Ain’t No Lie, Baby I’m Bi Bi Bi’_  in the colors of the bisexual flag with a pair of orange skinny jeans and Chucks that were an entirely different shade of orange. His long, black, curly hair was tied back with a pink, heart patterned bandanna.

In short, then…he was exactly Eddie’s type. That wasn’t going to stop Eddie from handing the guy his ass, but it was an indisputable fact.

“Taco-bout a touchy reaction,” the stranger said, smirking down at Eddie. Eddie gritted his teeth, appalled at the joke. “I was just wondering if you were tweeting at Taco Bell because you worked for them. You know, as a model for their advertising campaigns.”

Eddie spluttered. “Why would I–is that even a compliment?? Like, ‘you look like a model…but like, a model that works for Taco Bell’? And why did you think it was okay to touch my phone?!? Do you know how many germs–”

“Hey, whoa, whoa, whoa. First of all, my calling you a taco model is a compliment of the highest order, good sir,” insisted the stranger, slipping in and out of a god-awful British accent. “Second, you’re in a Taco Bell. All fast food places are germ nests. Them’s the facts.”

“I know,” Eddie muttered, scowling. “I usually make a point to do drive-thru.”

“Ah, that’s why I’ve never seen you here before.” The stranger snapped, nodded, and grinned. “This is one of my haunts. By the way, Richie Tozier’s the name, and eating shitty tex-mex is the game.” He stuck out his hand towards Eddie, grin still in place. Eddie glared at him and ignored the handshake.

“Richie Tozier, if you get a fucking free taco and I don’t, I’ll castrate you.”

Richie, for whatever reason, was zero percent phased by that. He looked down and shrugged. “I mean, I don’t blame you. But what’s your name, gorgeous? I gave you mine; it’s fair play.”

“Like fuck I’m telling you that,” Eddie hissed, ignoring the voice in the back of his mind that was quietly expressing interest in continuing to talk to Richie.

“Let me guess it,” Richie asked, eyes alight. “Give me three guesses. It’ll be like Rumplestiltskin.”

Eddie crossed his arms. “I expect you’ll want something if you win.”

“I was thinking you could give me your number,” Richie agreed, raising his eyebrows in a way he clearly thought was suave. (It wasn’t even a little suave.)

Three guesses wasn’t bad. Statistically speaking, there was really no way that Richie would ever guess correctly, what with the sheer number of things it could be, so Eddie decided to humor him. “Sure. Tell me what you’ve got.”

“Dennis,” Richie said promptly. Eddie shook his head.

“I like that name, but no.”

“Okay.” Richie tapped at his jaw, thinking. “Um. Well, you’re the most precious little thing I’ve ever seen, so you should have a cute name to match…but what qualifies as a cute name for a guy? Like…all I can think of is fucking hyper-masculine shit like Chad, you know? And–”

Eddie quickly deduced that Richie enjoyed the sound of his own voice. And…as Richie continued to talk and talk and talk, Eddie found that he enjoyed the sound of Richie’s voice as well.

Shit, he was smiling. He was supposed to be mad at this guy.

“Attention customers,” came a shout from the front. Eddie stiffened, and most of the line turned to look - except for Richie, who was still babbling about the gender spectrum and what qualified as a neutral name.

“Pipe the fuck down, asshole.” Eddie smacked him lightly on the arm.

Richie didn’t miss a beat. He leaned down into Eddie’s space with a smirk that was indicative of a challenge. “How about you make me?”

Oh, fuck. Richie was really close, now - close enough that Eddie could see his reflection in his glasses. Swallowing hard, he sent up a quick prayer that none of his students were anywhere nearby….and leaned in, too.

“Whatever it is you’re going for,” Eddie whispered, trying to keep his eyes away from Richie’s (beautiful) mouth, “you’ve gotta earn it.”

“Jack.” Richie breathed out a guess in response…and that was enough to break the spell. Eddie stepped back, rolling his eyes.

“Hell no–” Eddie began, but was cut off by the yelling employee at the counter.

“We have enough materials for seven more tacos! After that, you’re gonna have to buy something else!”

Quickly, Eddie stood up on his tiptoes to count the people in front of him. One, two, three, four, five, six…

…and wouldn’t you know it, Richie was seven.

What a fucking day.

“Well, looks like you’re getting castrated,” Eddie informed Richie dully.

Richie sighed. “Yeah, well, it was either you or my roommate Stan when I got home. Sorry.”

“Not your fault.” Eddie hadn’t brought money with him, so he took a step to the side, getting out of the line. Strangely, he found himself more disappointed to be leaving Richie than he was to not get a taco. He chose not to be horrified by that, and instead put up a hand, giving Richie a small wave. “Thanks for the weird conversation. I think.”

“I have one more guess,” Richie said quickly, grabbing Eddie’s arm lightly to keep him in line for another minute. “I think it’s a good one, too.”

“Richie, you’re not gonna–”

“Eddie,” Richie guessed, a small smile playing at the corners of his lips. “Eddie Kaspbrak, in fact.”

Eddie gaped at him for a full thirty seconds.

“How?” he finally choked out.

“Your phone case,” Richie explained softly. “You’ve got some kind of a label on it. Says your name.”

Ah, shit. Eddie forgot that his roommate Bill had labeled literally everything in their apartment this weekend. Apparently, the excitement of having a new label maker outweighed practicality for Bill Denbrough…but that wasn’t surprising, because virtually everything outweighed practicality for Bill Denbrough.

When he got home, Eddie was either going to strangle Bill or thank him profusely. He hadn’t decided which one yet.

“So it does,” Eddie said, looking at his feet. “Well played, Richie Tozier.”

“And my stars, it shuuuure is nice to meet you, Mister Eddie Kaspbrak,” Richie responded, fingers fidgeting restlessly as he butchered his way through a Southern accent. “You really don’t have tuh give little ol’ me your telephone number if yeew don’t wanna, though. Was jist some fun is all.”

“Just give me your phone, dumbass.” Eddie felt his ears go hot as he put out a hand. Richie’s eyes widened, and he immediately grabbed the proffered hand…and pressed a gross, wet, open-mouthed kiss to Eddie’s palm. Eddie shrieked, drawing several exasperated looks from Taco Bell’s stoned looking patrons. “Or not, nevermind. See you never.”

“Eds,” Richie protested, and alarm bells went off in Eddie’s head.

“That is absolutely NOT my name,” he said stonily. One of the kids in his trickiest cohort went by Eds, and he was  _not_  about to share a nickname with a four foot tall tattletale of a sixth grader.

“But it’s cute, like you–” Richie tried, but before he could present the rest of his argument, the cashier called ‘Next!’ and it was his turn at the counter.

“Goodbye, Richie,” Eddie said, trying and failing not to feel sad.

“Can you wait, like, five minutes,” Richie asked, edging on desperate.

Eddie shook his head. “Get your taco in peace. Nice to meet you.”

Richie was midway through an order at that point, but sent him a final, pleading look. Eddie bit back remorse and turned on his heel, walking slowly back to his car. The day’s exhaustion all seemed to hit him at once, and once he reached the driver’s seat, he all but crumpled into it. He turned on the radio and allowed himself to sit and feel sorry for himself for a few minutes…it had been an absolute dumpster fire of a day, all in all.

He was jolted out of his funk by the sound of his passenger side car door opening.

“You ditched me to do this? Eds, medium offense, but this is depressing as hell.”

Eddie turned his head slightly to glare at Richie.

“What the fuck, Richard.”

“That is my full name, yes.” Richie slid into the passenger seat a little awkwardly, moved the seat back a little bit to accommodate for his gangly limbs, and then promptly reached out and snatched Eddie’s phone off of his lap.

Eddie groaned. “Are you kidding me?”

“Not at all.” Richie pressed down on the center button, and then spoke into the phone. “Siri, please call 860-918-5555.”

Richie’s phone immediately began to vibrate in his pocket, and he reached down to shut it off.

“Don’t send me dick pics,” Eddie said hotly, staring helplessly at his phone in Richie’s hand. As if sensing that Eddie was uncomfortable, Richie immediately put the phone into one of Eddie’s car cup holders.

“Every picture of me is a dick pic,” Richie responded lightly. “You know…Richard. Dick. Hey, how do you get Dick out of Richard, anyway?”

Eddie had heard that one before. “You ask nicely.”

Richie crowed. “Oh, he knows the joke! A man after my own heart. Here, by the way.” He tossed a bag into Eddie’s lap. “All yours.”

Eddie pulled himself up from where he was slumped over the steering wheel and looked into the bag.

There was a taco inside.

“Oh, Christ,” Eddie groaned. “Dude, this is yours, come on.”

“I bought stuff for me.” Richie brandished his own bag. “I wanted you to have this more than I wanted to have it, all right? Chivalry’s not dead, yadda yadda yadda, eat your taco, Eds of the beautiful brown eyes.”

At that point, Richie came to a realization, and his own eyes widened behind his comically large glasses.

“Wait, did you call me attractive?!”

“Objectively,” Eddie said quickly, turning his head away. “Uh.”

“I’m…” Richie looked bizarrely embarrassed by the compliment. “People, um, don’t usually say that about me. So. Thanks?”

Without thinking about it, Eddie reached over the center console and took Richie’s hand, lacing their fingers together. “Yeah, well. Obviously you weren’t talking to the right people at Taco Bell before this.”

“Obviously not,” Richie agreed, squeezing his hand in a way that made Eddie’s bones feel electric.

They sat in silence for a moment, hands joined awkwardly as they tried to maneuver around to get their food open.

"Is this a date?" Richie finally blurted, staring fixedly into his bag.

Eddie thought about that for a moment, and then smiled.

"I'll give you three guesses."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> skeletonscribbles.tumblr.com <3


	3. Green (Reddie)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richie doesn't know why watching Eddie with Bill makes his chest feel tight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: ‘wow, Eds, you have no idea how much I think about you at night’

Richie Tozier wasn’t quite sure what he was feeling.

He liked to think that he was a pretty agreeable fellow, all in all - always reliable for a couple of good chucks by way of sex jokes (not that he had any experience with sex itself; in fact, thinking about it for too long made him feel sort of hot and funny, so usually he elected just to laugh it off and move on)...

...so when he saw Eddie Kaspbrak climb on to Bill Denbrough’s shoulders to play chicken down at the quarry, why didn’t he feel like cracking wise?

He wasn’t angry about Eddie and Bill teaming up, per se. The other six people splashing around in the water with him were his best friends in the whole world; he loved them wholly and unconditionally and would never be  _angry_  with any of them, ever...even if Eddie had refused to partner with him for chicken earlier on, citing “germs”. No, he wasn’t mad about that. He couldn’t even blame him - it had probably been like two and a half days since his last shower. (He considered himself above such things - and besides, it wasn’t like he was the only unwashed miscreant at the arcade every day.)

He wasn’t sad, either. He knew sad pretty well - it washed over him every so often like an ocean wave, without purpose or form. His mother said that he’d inherited it from her, that she had it too...and that it always passed, no matter how bad it got. So far, she’d been right...but this wasn’t that. It was too sharp a feeling to be that.

His best guess for the feeling was ‘uncomfortable’. He wasn’t uncomfortable very often, but sometimes when Eddie looked at him, his skin vibrated with...something like what he was feeling now, so it was probably safe to chalk the whole thing up to discomfort.

But why the hell would he feel like that about a perfectly normal chicken fight? He hadn’t felt weird when Stan had climbed up on Bill’s shoulders earlier. He’d felt other things: the look on Bill’s ruby red face had been good for a laugh, and Stan’s ultimate loss to Beverly on Ben’s shoulders had been incredibly satisfying, but this...this was…

Richie was ripped from his reverie by a shriek and a splash; Bev had triumphed again. Eddie had been knocked backwards into the water. Bill was quick to try and help him back up, and Eddie clung to him, gasping for breath in a way that indicated that he’d need his inhaler soon.

Sure enough, as soon as Eddie was situated enough to control his motor functions, he was out of the water like a shot, wheezing exaggeratedly. Bill followed, hot on his heels, and the gross feeling in Richie’s chest grew more pronounced. He watched them walk away, feeling confused and disoriented.

“Earth to Idiot.” Stan came out of the blue, rolling his eyes and shoving Richie’s arm roughly. “You’re too quiet. What are you plotting?”

“Who, me?” Richie put on his best nonchalant face. “Just thinking about Eddie’s mom.”

“His mom, huh?” Stan was, as always, unimpressed. He looked at Richie with an expression that suggested that Richie was missing some big important point.

“Or yours, whichever, take your pick.” Richie laughed nervously. “I’ve been through ‘em all.”

Stan tutted, shaking his head. “Your birth was the first and last time you’re ever going to touch a vagina, dumbshit.

That statement made Richie nervous for reasons he didn’t understand. “What kind of blasphemy--”

“Richie.” Stan’s face was completely serious, and Richie couldn’t help but shiver in looking back at him. “I’ve known you for fuck knows how long…too long, definitely. Believe me when I say that I know you better than you know yourself.”

“Stanley, old chap, you’re not making a lick of sense,” Richie tried, breaking out his trusty British accent and feeling very small.

Stan looked away. “Okay, maybe you still don’t know, whatever. Just...don’t wallow. Go talk to Eddie.”

Richie blinked back at Stan. “What?”

“Go. Talk. To. Eddie.” Stan shoved his arm one more time, and then turned and started pushing towards where Mike was waiting by the shore. “And stop staring at Bill like he killed your dog. Jesus.”

“You’re Jewish,” Richie pointed out.

“Jesus was a Jew,” Stan retorted neatly, not looking back.

Richie weighed his options. On the one hand, he kind of wanted to piss off Stan by doing the exact opposite of the thing that Stan had suggested. (It was a frequent strategy of Richie’s, and for good reason - it got a rise out of Stan every time.) On the other...well, he wanted this fucking feeling to go away, didn’t he?

He pushed his way out of the water and on to the shore, where Bill was holding an aspirator to Eddie’s mouth.

Richie frowned at the sight of Bill kneeling by Eddie. It didn’t seem fair that Bill got to monopolize all of Eddie’s time and space. The two of them were seemingly attached at the hip. Eddie’s love for Bill was obvious and all-consuming; he followed their ginger beanpole of a leader around like a puppy. In fact, if he didn’t know better, Richie would say that Eddie was in love with Bill. He certainly acted like it, anyway.

An image surfaced in Richie’s mind, unbidden, of Eddie and Bill engaged in a kiss. He pushed it out as quickly as it came, disgusted at himself for thinking it...and upset that it had made the feeling in his chest increase tenfold. Eddie and Big Bill could do what they wanted - it wasn’t any of Richie’s business or concern.

(Except that...it kind of felt like it was.)

“You okay, Eds?” Richie asked, swallowing his negative thoughts and strolling over to Eddie’s crouched form.

Eddie sat up stiffly. “Just peachy. Obviously.”

Richie put up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Just a concerned pal here, Eddie my love. No need to go all she-wolf on me.”

“Fuck off,” Eddie mumbled, looking as if he wanted nothing more than to disappear.

Bill looked between the two of them with the same knowing expression that Stan had worn earlier. “Yeah, I’m g-gonna go...Richie, make sure Eddie keeps b-b-breathing?”

“You can count on me,” Richie saluted, feeling a strange sort of relief at the thought of Bill leaving. Eddie, strangely, did not protest Bill’s departure - he just slumped back down, clutching his inhaler weakly.

“I’ll leave you to it, then,” Bill said, getting to his feet and heading in the direction of Ben, who had procured a picnic basket and was handing out sandwiches to their other friends. “I’m stuh-starved.”

As soon as Bill left, Richie found himself wanting him back. Without Bill, the energy between he and Eddie had turned...strange.

“What is he leaving us to?” Eddie asked after a minute, looking nervous.

“I’m sure he just wanted to give me a minute alone with my dear Spaghetti,” Richie said, reaching out to pinch Eddie’s cheeks out of habit. “Since he’s usually the one who gets you, I’d say it’s only fair.”

Eddie ducked out of reach of Richie’s offending hands, scowling. “What do you mean, he gets me?”

Richie shrugged, trying not to let the bitter feeling he was harboring seep into his words. “You and Big Bill are like...Bert and Ernie or some shit. Always together.”

Eddie stared back at him. “Bill’s my best friend.”

“And mine,” Richie agreed, “but the difference is that I don’t have an obvious boner for him.”

As soon as the words left Richie’s mouth, he wished that he could take them back...but it was too, too late for that. Eddie’s eyes had gone huge, and his face was on its way to turning bright tomato red.

“Excuse me?”

Richie pressed on, despite the fact that he could all but feel himself digging his own grave. “Oh, you know...when he does something cool, and you give him the face like you’re hoping that he’s gonna bust out a ‘wow, Eds, you have no idea how much I think about you at night’--”

“Bill doesn’t call me Eds,” Eddie cut in, and of all the things Richie was expecting him to say, that definitely didn’t crack the top ten.

“So what?” Richie asked, shaken and a little embarrassed. “Isn’t that more of a reason for you to fuck him?”

The thought of Bill and Eddie being... _intimate_  together was a pervasive and terrible one. Richie felt the impact of it in his stomach, and bit down on his lip in an attempt to distract himself from whatever bullshit was going on in his midsection.

Eddie wrinkled his nose. “Gross. Bill’s like my big brother.”

And just like that, like air coming out of a balloon, the monster in Richie’s chest retreated, and he could breathe again.

“Good,” he said unthinkingly. “Good.”

“Good?” Eddie quirked an eyebrow, amused.

Oh. Shit. Where the hell had that come from?

“Uh.” Richie, for once, was at a loss for words. “Uh. Because then, my, uh, relationship with your mom…”

“Cut the crap, Richie,” Eddie said, a little half-smile on his face. He was beautiful that way, Richie thought. He was beautiful every way.

Richie realized in that moment that the monster that had been clawing its way through his chest was distinctively green-eyed.

“Have you been thinking about  _me_  at night?” Eddie continued, a mischievous twinkle in his eye.

Richie shook his head in abject shock. “Eddie, if you could shut the fuck up for like five seconds please, this is a lot to process--”

Eddie laughed happily and reached out to tug at Richie’s wrist. He urged him down a little closer, and placed a sweet, soft kiss just to the left of Richie’s mouth.

There was a new feeling in Richie’s chest, now - something warm and explosive.

“Whenever you’re ready,” Eddie whispered, and slid past him to join their friends in eating.

Richie followed, cataloguing the warmth pooling in his stomach to try and identify later .

\----

(It turned out to be joy.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> skeletonscribbles.tumblr.com <3


	4. Sugar, Spice, and Bad Advice (Reddie)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stan has absolutely no idea why Richie comes to him for romantic advice...so, like any respectable businessman, he outsources.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: “Yes, I did say that, but I didn’t think you were going to be a dumbass!”

Stanley Uris did not consider himself a romantic person by any means.

He appreciated romance, certainly. From a very young age, he was poring through books with clever heroines and rooting for them to end up living happily with attractive, intelligent partners. (More often than not, said heroines never encountered anyone as smart as they were, and so they had to settle. Stan thought that was a shame. If he were writing books, he would write romance very differently.) That said, in real life, he tended to be more realistic and less dreamy about matters of the heart.

All of this being the case, it really didn’t make any sense at all that Richie Tozier was coming to him for romantic advice…but then, Stan had long since come to terms with the fact that nothing about Richie made any sense.

“You’ve gotta help me out here, buddy,” Richie was saying, pacing back and forth as Stan watched him disinterestedly from the couch. “I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what to say to him…do I say anything to him? Fuck, Stan, I’m gonna fuck this up, I’m such a piece of shit and he’s so….so….”

“Paranoid?” Stan offered, thinking of Eddie and smiling thinly. “Shrill?”

That was another baffling thing about the situation: Richie was pining over  _Eddie_. Eddie, who they’d known since kindergarten; Eddie, who cried in sixth grade because Greta Bowie wrote the word ‘cancer’ on one of his papers in Social Studies. Dirty, lewd Richie Tozier was having feelings for nervous, naive Eddie Kaspbrak. It was highly illogical, and Stan usually hated things that were illogical….but for whatever reason, his brain was somewhat settled with the idea of this particular pair of friends getting together, which was bizarre in and of itself.

Richie threw himself on to the couch with a groan, sprawling across Stan’s legs. Stan tried to kick at him, but he was pinned under Richie’s lanky frame. “I was going to say perfect,” Richie sighed wistfully, blowing a strand of hair out of his eyes.

Stan made an exaggerated whipping sound and gesture, and Richie responded by pulling himself over and blowing a raspberry onto Stan’s knee.

“Disgusting.” Stan shoved Richie off of the couch, and Richie hit the floor with a hard  _thud_. “Have you asked anyone else for advice about this? Perhaps they’d be able to do a little more for you than roll their eyes.”

Richie raised his head, peeking at Stan over the side of the couch. “You think they’d be okay with it? I keep thinking that Big Bill’s gonna kill me immediately upon hearing that I have designs on Eds’ virtue.”

“Don’t say that thing about virtue again. It was awful.” Stan shook his head, shuddering. “And trust me when I say that Bill is all for you and Eddie finally getting your fucking shit together.”

That much, at least, was true. Stan’s entire last conversation with Bill, much to his dismay, had been centered around getting Richie and Eddie to stop pining for each other. In fact, Stan’s recent conversations with most of the other Losers had been centered around getting Richie and Eddie to stop pining for each other. The situation was pretty universally annoying.

“Wait, but why would Bill’s love advice be better than yours?” Richie was looking at him curiously. “Or Bev’s or Ben’s or Mike’s, for that matter?”

Stan looked back at him flatly. “Richie. You know me.”

Richie thought about that, and then nodded. “Fair point. So…”

“Try Mike first,” Stan advised, thinking of Mike’s warm smile and feeling a little hot. “He’s got game.”

—-

The next day at school, Richie approached Eddie with a small bouquet of flowers.

It was, without a doubt, the worst bouquet that Stan had ever seen.

Richie had obviously picked it himself. Half of the flowers still had roots attached, and the bouquet was pretty much only made up of dandelions and violets, with the odd daisy or tulip that he’d probably taken illegally from someone’s garden. Richie had been clutching them tightly for quite a while, and they were starting to go limp in his grip.

In short, there was no fucking way that Eddie was going to touch that, and sure enough, when Eddie showed up, he recoiled.

“Richie, did you go through Mrs. Conway’s garden again? I TOLD you, she doesn’t grow marijuana! Not that you’d even know what marijuana looks like anyway, Went would fucking end you if he smelled smoke on your–”

Richie cut off Eddie’s tirade by shoving the flowers towards him. “They’re for you, Eds! And only a few of them are from Mrs. Conway’s.”

Eddie stared at him, horrified. “You expect me to touch those? First of all, you’ve been sweating all over them for probably twenty minutes now. Second, poison ivy–”

“Okay, if I don’t know what marijuana looks like, you definitely don’t know what poison ivy looks like,” Richie interjected hotly.

“ _I_  know what poison ivy looks like,” Stan informed them, unable to help himself.

“No you fucking don’t, jackass. Not every plant is poison ivy,” Richie all but yelled, face crimson with either frustration or embarrassment (Stan couldn’t tell).

“Anyways, asshat, bad fucking joke. Do better next time.” Eddie stomped towards the high school in a huff, and Richie looked helplessly over at Mike, who had been watching the whole escapade unfold with a grim expression.

“So, flowers are out,” Mike finally said, shrugging. “Sorry, Rich.”

“Shit.” Richie dropped the “bouquet” and sighed. “It’s okay, Mikey, you meant well.”

“That’s pretty much the extent of my flirting expertise, unless you want to bring Eddie a chicken.” Mike wrinkled his nose at the thought. “And that’s a terrible idea, by the way. He’d flip.”

“I’d pay to see that,” Bev muttered, obviously visualizing Eddie’s inevitable chicken meltdown.

Richie turned to look at Beverly after she spoke, cogs obviously turning in his head. “What about you, Bevvy? Any grand ideas for what is now apparently my crowdsourced seduction of Eds Kaspbrak?”

“Bevvy has nothing,” Bev said solemnly, opening her arms and closing her eyes. “Bevvy was clever enough to land the perfect guy without having to resort to cheap tactics.”

Richie flipped her off with both hands, and Ben crossed to her to hug her from behind, beaming.

“I have a thought,” Ben said, smiling into Bev’s hair.

“Yes?” Richie crossed his arms.

“Beverly doesn’t have a suggestion…” Ben trailed off, eyes glinting, “…but  _Benverly_  does.”

“I’m listening,” said Richie, narrowing his eyes.

—-

Ben had wooed Beverly by way of a little haiku-esque poem, and so his advice to Richie was, predictably, to put together some sort of piece of writing for Eddie.

Stan knew right away that this plan was destined to fail, but he kept his mouth shut and let Richie try, not wanting to become the advice-giver again. The strategy was good, all in all, but for it to be effective Richie would have to be…less Richie, which was impossible.

A week after the bouquet, Richie joined the Losers in their before-school spot wearing a nice, collared shirt (buttoned all the way up, so no one could see the graphic tee underneath) and a pair of khakis that was slightly less wrinkled than Stan expected from him. He had obviously attempted to comb down his wild curls - attempted being the keyword. It wasn’t a look that suited Richie at all, but he was almost endearing, Stan thought, just by virtue of his obvious effort. (Almost.)

When Eddie arrived a minute later, he just about tripped over his own two feet gawking at Richie.

“Did Stan let you borrow clothes, or what?” he asked, staring unabashedly at the buttons on Richie’s shirt.

Stan resented that, and was about to tell Eddie so, but Richie was pulling a crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket, so he held himself back.

“Eds,” he began, pulling at the collar of his shirt. “Spaghetti-o.”

Eddie buried his hands in his hair, pulling nervously. “What is happening.”

“Your freckles are like constellations,” Richie began. He was playing it off like he wasn’t nervous, but there was a telltale shakiness to his voice. “They trail up to the galaxies of your eyes….”

Stan couldn’t help but be impressed. Almost a whole line in, and Richie hadn’t mentioned Eddie’s mom once.

Eddie was less enthused. “I’m really fucking tired of being the butt of your jokes, Richie.”

“It’s not a joke,” Richie explained exasperatedly.

“And my mom isn’t the biggest bitch in Derry,” Eddie jeered, fed up. “Let’s just go to class, okay? Mike, did you understand the statistics homework?”

Mike looked defeatedly around at the other Losers, and then joined Eddie in walking back towards the school building. Once they were far enough away, Richie threw his poem in the air in frustration.

“If it helps, I thought you were off to a good start,” Stan offered.

“It doesn’t help,” Richie grumbled.

Ben looked perturbed. “I really thought he’d go for that. We took all references to Richie’s dick out of it and everything.”

Ah. So Ben had a hand in the creation of the poem. The sweetness of it suddenly made sense.

“Looks like it’s on you, now, Denbrough,” Bev said, looking expectantly at Bill. Bill swallowed hard, and Stan rolled his eyes. If Bill couldn’t figure out that Stan had been flirting with him for the past three years, he wouldn’t be able to help Richie.

“I could p-probably suggest something,” Bill said meekly, and it was all Stan could do not to bang his head into the nearby telephone pole.

—-

“I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again,” Stan hissed, “Bill’s advice is garbage, and this is a disaster.”

Bill Denbrough, literary genius that he was, was absolutely horrible at romantic suggestions. He had reminded Richie that Eddie had a sweet tooth, and had advised him to make cookies for Eddie as a gift (and as a kind-of apology for the last two disastrous attempts at flirting).

So far, Richie had burnt two batches, and the batter consistency of the third was…alarming, to say the least. He’d called Stan in a panic some twenty minutes ago, and Stan had pedaled over in a huff, cursing Bill Denbrough’s name.

“You’re the one that said it would be a good idea to ask the other Losers how to go about doing this!” Richie retorted, gesticulating wildly with a cup of flour and then groaning as most of the flour flew out of the cup and on to the floor.

“Yes, I did say that, but I didn’t think you were going to be a dumbass!” Stan went for the broom and dustpan, feeling the beginnings of a headache coming on.

“You didn’t?! Come on, dude.” Richie leaned on the counter, took off his glasses, and rubbed at his eyes. “You call me a dumbass, like, every day.”

“Yes, and I mean it, and this time I mean it about the rest of our friends, too. And Eddie. Dumbasses, all.” Stan swept the flour neatly into the dustbin, scowling. “Just tell him how you feel. The hokey tactics that everyone is suggesting are terrible. Ask each other out pointblank, for fuck’s sake.”

“Ask who out?” A high-pitched, familiar voice sounded from the doorway, and Richie whipped around so fast Stan was a little worried that he’d break something (probably himself).

“Eds?” Richie panicked and headed for the trash can, seemingly to try and block Eddie from seeing its contents. “Uh, what?”

“Bev said she thought she could see smoke coming from your house, so she sent me over to check,” Eddie said, and Stan silently thanked Bev for trying to be proactive about shutting down Bill’s stupid cookie plot. “Who are you asking out, Richie?”

Stan could all but see the ‘your mom’ that was racing to make its way out of Richie’s mouth. Fortunately, he was standing close enough to remedy it. He kicked at Richie’s ankle, and when Richie looked over at him, he gave him a significant look, hoping that that would be enough for Richie to remember what they had just been talking about.

Richie nodded, and took a deep breath. “I, um, have something to tell you, Eds, and, uh, you might not like it–”

“Is it that you like me?” Eddie asked nonchalantly. “Because I know that.”

Richie gaped. “Say what now?”

“I’m not stupid.” Eddie shrugged and peered past Richie, trying to discern what was in the trash can. “You’ve been acting weird for a while, and then you started dressing differently and bringing in weird stuff for me. It wasn’t hard to put two and two together.”

“And you’re not mad?” Richie asked weakly.

“Nah.” Eddie stuck his hands in his pockets. “As far as the poem was concerned...I was just mad you were trying to pull that shit in public. It felt, like...forced, you know?”

“And the flowers?”

Eddie fixed Richie with a look. “You mean the weeds you stole from Mrs. Conway's?”

“All right, all right, fine.” Richie’s ears went red. “But…Christ, Eddie, why didn’t you tell me?”

Eddie smiled. “I kind of wanted to see what you’d do.” He paused, examining Richie’s face. “I like you too, by the way…even if you did burn a fuckton of cookies today.”

“Oh,” Richie blurted, grabbing his glasses from off of the counter. “Um. Can I kiss you?”

“Wait until I leave, for the love of God,” Stan begged, jolting up from where he had been leaning on the counter.

Richie and Eddie both jumped. They’d obviously forgotten that Stan was still there.

“Looks like your advice was the best after all, Stanny Boy,” Richie grinned after a moment, sliding closer to Eddie and throwing his arm around Eddie’s shoulders. “I was right the first time about which Loser to listen to.”

“Was Stan’s advice to just cut the crap and go for it?” Eddie asked. Richie nodded, and Stan rolled his eyes. They made him sound so ineloquent.

“He always tells it like it is,” Richie said fondly.

“He is truly the best of us,” Eddie agreed. “Now if you don’t mind, Stanley, you absolute gem of a human…get out of here so I can make out with Richie against this disaster zone of a counter.”

“With pleasure,” Stan said, all but bolting out of the door.

He was smiling, though, in spite of everything.

Maybe he was a little romantic, after all.

—-

(And even though he still thought that the other Losers had hokey romantic tactics, when he received a bouquet of flowers from one anonymous admirer and a batch of cookies from another, he couldn’t help but feel warm inside.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> skeletonscribbles.tumblr.com <3


	5. every minor detail is a major decision (Reddie)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bill knows everything about his fellow Losers, except what they choose to keep from him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the fyeahreddie 'caught' prompt on Tumblr :)

For all that he claimed to be an artist, Bill Denbrough wasn’t incredibly interested in details.

His sketches and stories were all still broad, expansive things. Statements, he called them. He was sixteen, and generalities were where he made his home, because he hadn’t been anywhere yet; hadn’t experienced enough to have details worth writing or drawing.

Or maybe - he had, but he couldn’t remember? His memory was all static these days. That didn’t help Bill artistically, either. He always had to have a reference immediately near him or the image would fade, fade, fade like a t-shirt that had been through the wash too many times.

The exceptions to Bill’s memory rule were his friends. He could draw them in the dark; he could write pages and pages about their tics (the precise, clipped way Stan folded his napkin before eating, the little twitch Mike’s nose did that gave away when he was about to laugh), their verbal idiosyncrasies (the slight tonality changes of Richie’s voice that gave away his emotions, even when he was deep in deflective joke mode), their fears (Ben’s hand inching its way over his mouth whenever someone offered him their food, Bev’s propensity towards social avoidance when it was her time of the month), and their dreams (the worn pages of Eddie’s home medical journal that betrayed a deep devotion to fixing his and everyone’s perceived ailments). He had a thorough and practiced knowledge about everything that had to do with the six people with whom he spent most of his time. No detail of that kind escaped him.

All of that being the case, he certainly wasn’t expecting to be caught by surprise when he left the game of manhunt they’d set up in the Barrens to check on Richie and Eddie. Eddie had been opposed to the idea of playing from the start (he, Stan, and Ben had voted to read comics instead, but had lost that vote 4-3), so it wasn’t weird that he opted to sit out early, citing his asthma…but it  _was_  weird that Richie had joined him. Richie  _loved_ manhunt. He was god-awful at it because he was so loud, but as long as they continued to allow him to be in character the whole time as Sonny Crockett from Miami Vice, he was thrilled to take part.

After playing for a half-hour without hearing the phrase “People in stucco houses shouldn’t throw quiche” even once, Bill decided to investigate. He apologized to his team quickly (Bev and Stan understood; Bev was gnawing at her lower lip because of the bizarre silence, and Stan kept starting in on half-developed quips that he cut short because there was no one there to needle) and departed into the deeper forest, hoping that his friends hadn’t wandered too far.

Bill wouldn’t have found them if it weren’t for the fact that Richie was still getting used to the gangly limbs that puberty had cursed him with. The sound that gave them away was a loud twig snap from just off the vague dirt path that they usually traversed when moving through the Barrens, which was followed up by a loud curse from Eddie.

“Oh my fucking–be CAREFUL, Richie. Ben and Bill and the rest of them are literally–”

“You realize you’re the one being loud right now, Eds?”

“Oh, fuck me.” Eddie’s voice was low and rough, but the fondness in it was a far cry from the tone Eddie usually took when Richie was right. Bill pushed closer, hiding himself behind trees as he went - obviously, this wasn’t a conversation they were looking for anyone else to hear.

“Funny, that’s just what your mom said last night,” Richie answered, taking a moment afterwards to laugh at his own joke. There was a slap (probably initiated by Eddie), more giggling, and then…

Bill was close enough at that point to be able to see them in profile, and when he registered what was going on, he had to brace himself against his hiding tree in shock. Richie had Eddie pressed against a big evergreen, and Eddie was not complaining about the itchiness of the bark on his back or the amount of bugs he was probably touching; instead, his mouth was wholly and completely occupied by Richie’s mouth. They were kissing - badly, with too much drool and awkward mouth movements - but kissing all the same.

If Bill had glasses, that would have been the moment that he cleaned them and peered out again to see if the situation had changed. He was that dumbfounded by what he was seeing.

What kind of fucked up new development was this?

He tore his eyes from Richie’s hands pushing up and under Eddie’s yellow polo and racked his brain for signs he might have missed. Sure, Eddie had never contributed to conversations about crushes and girls in their grade, but Bill had been sure that that was just because he was embarrassed…and Richie had made offhanded comments about attractive men, but there was a fine fine line between what was and wasn’t a joke with Richie, and Bill had always assumed that the “I’d totally blow Chris Cornell” comments were part of Richie’s comedy schtick.

Eddie moved to bury his face in the crook of Richie’s neck, and Richie made a series of responding little noises, which quickly evolved into Richie murmuring words into Eddie’s hair that Bill couldn’t quite catch. Seeing them entwined like that was making Bill’s stomach run hot for reasons that he couldn’t quite explain. He wasn’t, like… _homophobic_  or anything - Loser solidarity dictated that they were all okay with pretty much anything anyone else had going on - but the whole thing felt a little bit like a Julius Caesar situation. Why were they keeping this a secret? Bill had thought he’d known them - known Richie in particular - better than anyone else in the world. Didn’t they trust any of the Losers? Didn’t they trust  _him?_  
Or maybe…

A new thought lit up the back of Bill’s mind like a fire alarm, glaring red:  _they didn’t say anything because they knew that this was going to change everything._

Richie and Eddie being a commodity effectively divided the Losers into camps: RichieandEddie and everyone else. Couples’ energy was totally different than regular energy, which meant that they’d stay in their own little orbit while everyone else functioned around them at movie nights, quarry swims, ice-cream runs, and the rest, and that completely stood in the face of the easy chemistry they’d all cultivated over the years as seven individuals. Fuck. They’d all have to reconfigure and risk losing the six best friendships they’d ever had just because Richie and Eddie couldn’t keep it in their goddamn pants. Bill felt a burst of self-righteous anger shoot through him, and considered marching out and interrupting them to let them know they were out of their fucking minds.

Something was holding him back, though. Something in the way that Richie was sweeping Eddie’s hair out of his face; something in the flex of Eddie’s fingers as he pulled Richie in and pushed him away, over and over, like a wave crashing to the shore.

This was bigger than just a friend group thing, Bill realized begrudgingly. Neither of them would risk jeopardizing the Losers dynamic if this weren’t the real deal. They both loved their friends too much for that. Bill knew how important the validation of the group was to Richie (secretly) and Eddie (not so secretly), so to potentially put all of that support on the line…

Richie kissed Eddie again, soft and slow, and Bill took three deep breaths to will himself calm again.

“Do you think they’re worried yet?” Eddie asked softly after he and Richie broke apart.

“Definitely,” Richie confirmed. “How could they possibly be having a good game of Manhunt without my improved version of Don Johnson making an appearance?”

Eddie pulled himself out of Richie’s arms, wheezing with laughter. “Improved?!”

Richie sighed exaggeratedly, but the smile on his face betrayed the fact that he wasn’t actually exasperated at all. “Improved, Eds. Improved. But even if they’re not missing the quiche line, which is impossible but whatever, Bill goes all mother hen when any of us are away for too long. He’ll be back here soon. He’s a regular one-man search party.”

There was a quick silence. Eddie seemed to be troubled by something, if his wrinkled nose was anything to go by. Finally, he spoke.

“We should tell him, right?”

Richie’s shoulders slumped a little. If Bill didn’t know him so well, he wouldn’t have noticed, but as it was, he found his eyes drawn to the slight hunch. “I don’t want him to be mad.”

“He’s our best friend,” Eddie reminded him, but his eyes were cloudy; he was clearly conflicted.

“And change is hard,” Richie returned, shoving his hands into his pockets, “for him, for us. Could right well be the end of everything, old chap.”

Oh, that was a bad sign. Richie only broke out the British Guy when he was REALLY nervous.

“We should tell him,” Eddie repeated, folding his hands up across his chest and under his armpits.

Richie watched him rock back and forth on his heels for a moment, adjusted his glasses slowly, and then nodded. “I mean, yeah. We should tell him.”

Bill took two more deep breaths.

Change wasn’t the end of the world, was it?

He stepped forward into the clearing.

“Tell who what?” he asked, trying to be as clear and loud as possible. Richie and Eddie both whirled around frantically.

“Oh.” Richie’s body relaxed when he saw it was Bill, but his eyes were still on high alert. He glanced at Eddie surreptitiously, and Eddie responded by tapping deliberately against Richie’s wrist with his pointer finger.

(There were so many new details to file away, weren’t there?)

Bill hadn’t thought that Derry could bring him new experiences, but…change wasn’t the end of the world,  _change wasn’t the end of the world_ , and his art could only improve from observing Richie and Eddie and RichieandEddie instead of just the separate pieces like before. Right?

“We have something to tell you,” Eddie began tentatively.

Bill closed his eyes for a quick second, made a decision, and then opened them.

“Okay,” he said, watching as Richie and Eddie slowly gravitated back towards each other like magnets and willing himself to accept what they were about to say. “Okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> skeletonscribbles.tumblr.com <3


	6. thunder only happens when it's raining (Reddie)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the fyeahreddie "rain" prompt :)

“Holy fuck, what the--”

“FUCK. Did you bring a raincoat?”

“You’ve known me your whole goddamn life, Eds, what do you think?”

“Aughhhh, you’re the WORST, and now my socks are gonna get wet and I’m gonna catch pneumonia and my mother’s going to chain me to my bed for the rest of the year--”

“Just run, idiot! Get back to the car! Go!”

April in New England was pretty fickle, weather-wise, which meant that Richie Tozier should have anticipated some kind of precipitation grossness on his painstakingly planned friend-date with Eddie Kaspbrak (which was actually a regular date, but Eddie was being weird about it, so whatever)...but he was a dumbass, and he didn’t, so now he and Eddie were running through downtown Portland like absolute fools, pausing briefly under each building’s overhang to catch their breath (neither of them were in incredibly good shape, as their gym teacher Ms. Tolland really enjoyed pointing out).

“C’mon, Hot Stuff. We’re almost there,” Richie promised, exhaling heavily under the small almost-roof of the CVS they had reached and offering out a hand.

Eddie rolled his eyes and ignored Richie’s gesture. “I’m gonna need my inhaler when we get back to the car.”

“Sexy,” Richie commented lightly. “No comment on Hot Stuff?”

“I figured you’d just assume that I hated it,” Eddie grumbled, moving away from Richie and back out into the rain. “I hate all your nicknames for me.”

“You don’t,” Richie laughed, following him out. “And I’m gonna stick with Hot Stuff, if that’s okay.”

“It’s NOT okay,” Eddie yelled back at him, seemingly forgetting about the fact that he was short of breath, “and if you say it one more time in front of people, I’m calling a cab and going back to my house immediately--”

“In front of people?” The car was in sight, now. Richie could see it in the middle of one of the cheap pay-to-park lots at the end of the road. “So when we’re alone, it’s okay?”

Eddie had seen the car, too, and was making a beeline for it, so he didn’t stop to look at Richie when he flipped him off behind his back with both hands. That was okay with Richie. He’d take what he could get. He’d been taking what he could get for months, now - stolen kisses, secret touches, and of course, absolutely no confirmation from Eddie about feelings or relationship status...but it was fine. Richie was more patient than he let on. If it had to be hidden makeouts for a while, then so be it.

Eddie hadn’t thought far enough ahead to have remembered that Richie had the car keys. He threw himself against the car when he reached it and pulled desperately at the handle of the passenger seat, but it wouldn’t open. The car was locked.

Richie slid his hand into his pocket and moved his thumb over the jagged edge of the key to the shitty Subaru Legacy he’d inherited from Went. Smiling to himself, he slowed down, letting the rain wash over him. Having the upper hand was  _nice_.

“Richie, you fucking idiot! Move your ass!” Eddie was visibly shivering. He pulled his arms into the torso of his grey Champion sweatshirt and huddled into himself for warmth. “Why the fuck are you walking so slow, dipshit? We’re both going to be so wet and so sick and my mom--”

“C’mon, Spaghetti,” Richie said, finally reaching the car and unlocking one of the backseat doors. “Let’s get dry.”

Eddie stared at him like he’d suggested they kill Bill Clinton. “Why aren’t you getting in the driver’s seat? Aren’t we leaving?”

“Dinner reservation’s not ‘til six,” Richie explained, crawling over the backseat and opening the door on Eddie’s side. “Rain cut our  _go into random stores and make fun of their merch until we get kicked out_  time short. We’ve got time to kill.”

Eddie tentatively climbed in after Richie, closed the door, and immediately began trying to towel water off of his face with his sweatshirt sleeve. The sleeve was too wet to be doing him any good, but he remained persistent. “What did you have in mind?”

Richie responded by closing the car door, tossing his glasses into the front seat, and heaving his drenched long-sleeved tee over his head. After he deposited the shirt on the floor, he couldn’t resist shaking the water out of his long curls like a sheepdog, and he was immediately rewarded for his efforts by a small fist to the solar plexus.

“Dude!” Richie looked back up to find himself face to face with a beet red Eddie. If they were in a cartoon, steam would be issuing from his ears. “What the hell is your problem?”

Richie bit back a smart retort and leaned up into the front seat to turn the car on. “I thought we could warm ourselves up a little bit.”

Eddie gestured exasperatedly to Richie’s torso. “By taking off our clothes and sitting in a drafty car? Okay, genius.”

“I just turned the heat on,” Richie pointed out, nonplussed, “and the best and fastest way to get warm is skin to skin contact, you know. Or maybe you don’t know, you didn’t get dragged to Boy Scout meetings for a year by Wentworth Tozier and Stanley Uris. Whatever. Still.”

Eddie inhaled heavily, gaze drifting back to Richie’s chest, and then lower. Richie couldn’t help but preen a little bit. He was hardly what he personally would consider a looker - he was the brains of the Loser’s Club, not the beauty - but he knew from experience what it was like to REALLY want something (someone), and Eddie was showing all the signs.

“People will see,” Eddie said sharply, as if the worst possible thing that could happen to them in that moment was for a passerby to look into the car and catch them sitting innocuously in the backseat.

“Tinted windows,” Richie said smugly. “Live a little, Eds.”

“Don’t call me that,” Eddie warned, but he was pulling his sweatshirt over his head, too, revealing that expanse of freckled chest that Richie loved (to fantasize about running his tongue over) so dearly.

Richie took a minute to absorb the full implications of having a wet, disgruntled, and shirtless Eddie Kaspbrak in the backseat of his car, mentally high-fived himself, and then gave his most charming smile. “Does this mean we can make out now?”

“You’re so dumb,” Eddie muttered, pushing forward so that he was all but in Richie’s lap. Richie saw the kiss coming before it happened; Eddie was never subtle (they’d kissed for the first time immediately after Eddie had taken two shots at Bill’s party last December, turned to Richie, and commanded Richie to kiss him), and his hyperfocus on Richie’s mouth in the seconds before Eddie slotted their lips together was telling, to say the least.

Not that he was complaining, of course. Eddie was freezing in his arms, almost like a corpse, but as Richie slid his hands up and across Eddie’s back to feel the flex of his shoulder muscles, he knew without a doubt that there was nothing on Earth better than this. Eddie seemed to agree, if his roaming hands were anything to go by - he was dragging his fingers up and down the length of Richie’s chest, pausing only when he snagged them in one of the tufts of chest hair that Richie had accrued over the course of the past two years. (Richie pretended not to be turned on when Eddie tugged on that hair, but he was a better comedian than he was an actor at the end of the day, and so at this point he was pretty sure that Eddie had picked up on that particular kink and was exploiting it on purpose.)

When they finally broke apart to get their bearings, Richie leaned back and exhaled slowly as he stared unabashedly at Eddie’s chest again. “What was it you said earlier about this being a _friend_ -date?”

“You’re my friend,” Eddie insisted, sliding his hand up and running a thumb over one of Richie’s nipples experimentally. Richie shivered reflexively and scooted back. He was already half-hard, and this was not helping.

“Friends don’t put their tongues in other friends’ mouths,” Richie retorted, hurt slipping through and into his tone before he could stop it. “Usually.”

Eddie sighed and moved after Richie, climbing up into his lap and leaning their foreheads together. “Rich. I’m here in the backseat of your car in plain fucking view of all these Portland tourists--”

“Tinted windows,” Richie reminded him hotly, but Eddie just shushed him and continued.

“I think you know where I stand, really,” and he was looking down at his lap, now, where his hands were clasped firmly, “just don’t make me say it, okay?”

Richie thought about pushing the issue, but ultimately decided against it in favor of getting his mouth reattached to Eddie’s. It was enough, for now, to just  _know_.

“Someday, Spaghetti,” Richie told him, “you’ll tell me, okay? In the meantime, less talking, more kissing.”

“You’re the one that started the conversation--” Eddie began to protest, but was quickly silenced by the renewed force of Richie’s lips on his. The kiss immediately turned filthy; both boys seemed spurred on by Eddie’s roundabout confession of feelings, and Richie was struck with a definitive sense that if there were ever a time to push his luck, it would be now. He let his fingers wander towards the waistband of Eddie’s wet pants, and hovered there lightly enough to not be pushy but solidly enough that the question in it was clear.

To his surprise, Eddie mirrored his movements, sliding his own hands down and over the pockets of Richie’s jeans. They’d never progressed past making out before - this was unexplored territory. Richie broke the kiss to look down at Eddie, who was pink-cheeked and frazzled already, and had to shift to try and keep his boner in check.

“Is this okay?” Eddie asked, dipping his fingertips down into Richie’s pants. Richie let out a low hiss.

“I started it, sweetheart,” Richie said through gritted teeth. “You ask me.”

“I did, just now.” Eddie’s hands were moving towards the waistband of Richie’s jeans. Richie felt their path along his stomach like his fingers were fireworks going off against his skin. “Is it?”

Eddie’s hand stopped millimeters before it got to Richie’s dick, and Richie almost screamed in frustration.

“Just fucking do it, Eds, what the fuck,” Richie breathed, not even sparing a moment to return to the ‘Hot Stuff’ nickname like he’d planned.

“I don’t think I can, actually.” Eddie was frowning down at Richie’s lap. “I don’t know if I’ll have enough room. This is a bad angle for me to grip you, and we’re definitely limited in as far as I can--”

“Fucking tiny-ass piece of shit car,” Richie swore, trying to scoot back. “Is this better?”

Eddie slid his hands up Richie’s thighs experimentally, ghosted towards his crotch, and then retracted them. “Only if you want me to blow you...and I’m not there yet, I’m definitely not there yet.”

Richie considered his options, identified the best one, and then pushed Eddie backwards towards the door on his side. He slid down on to his stomach and moved towards Eddie’s crotch, wetting his lower lip with his tongue.

But...no. Eddie didn’t want it. He pushed Richie away almost as soon as he figured out what Richie was trying to do.

“I’m not there yet, shithead! Neither way - giving or receiving.”

“Sorry, jeez, forgive a guy for wanting to help--”

“Just…” Eddie’s hands flew up into his hair in frustration, “come here, okay?” He adjusted himself so he was lying across the backseat, legs spread invitingly. The car was almost too small for him to even be able to do that, but he managed, pushing his feet towards his head with his hands on the backs of his thighs. “If you could just--”

“On it.” Richie’s caveman brain didn’t have to be told twice. Eddie was practically on display for him - as much of Eddie as he could see without his glasses, anyway. He climbed eagerly back up and hovered his torso over Eddie, leaning down so that his breath ghosted over Eddie’s mouth...but they weren’t lining up. Richie was too tall and too cramped up to be able to swing his legs over properly.

“You’re definitely not...on it…” Eddie pointed out, giggling a little bit. Richie dipped down to kiss him once, and then stayed pressed up against his mouth, speaking into it.

“It’s you on my lap or nothing,” he murmured, pressing a palm against Eddie’s stomach. “Personally, I am totally fine with any contact at all, bad angle or no--”

Eddie pushed lightly on his shoulder to indicate that he should move back, and sat up, looking over at Richie with a sweet, sad expression. “I know, Rich, but…”

“But?” Richie pressed, a little desperate for some friction or pressure or  _something_  on his dick.

“I want...I want our first time to be, like...good, okay? I know that’s probably just me projecting stuff from my mom’s shitty telenovelas and Danielle Steele novels, and it’s stupid, but it’s what I want.” Eddie was looking down at his lap again, obviously embarrassed.

Richie sighed, scooted back on to the seat, and pulled Eddie back towards him. He could will this boner back, or come in his pants, or whatever. Anything to make Eddie happy. “Cheerio, then. I’ll romance you good and proper at a later date.”

“The British Guy isn’t sexy,” Eddie informed him, reaching up to wind his fingers in Richie’s hair.

“I know,” said Richie, closing his eyes and leaning into Eddie’s touch. “I’m trying to get rid of a problem.”

Eddie nodded understandingly. “I guess it wouldn’t be helpful if I asked you to kiss me again, would it?”

“No,” Richie said, smiling fondly down at Eddie’s blurry, put-out expression, “but that doesn’t mean I won’t do it.”

He leaned down and captured Eddie’s lips again gently, and sighed happily when he felt Eddie scoot closer so that they were pressed flush against one another, chest-to-chest.

“You’re the best boyfriend I’ve ever had,” Eddie told him, pulling back and burying his face in Richie’s neck.

“I’m the only boyfriend you’ve ever had,” Richie reminded him, running his hands up and down his back. “And I guess this was good timing in terms of our reservati--”

Richie stopped mid-sentence and stared down at the top of Eddie’s head. All at once, he felt his chest clench and his cheeks grow hot. Eddie shifted slightly and looked up at him, expression electric.

“Finally got there, huh?”

“Boyfriend?” Richie asked softly, raking his eyes over the freckles on Eddie’s nose.

“That’s what you are, right?” Eddie asked nervously. “You’ve been my boyfriend for a while...in my mind, at least, and I’m sorry I said...I mean, the thing about the friend date...I wasn’t ready--”

Richie kissed him quickly, pressing into his mouth bruisingly hard. When he pulled back, Eddie’s eyes were hopeful, and Richie felt butterflies swarming up in his stomach.  _Boyfriends_.

“Guess what?”

“What?” Eddie was looking at his mouth again. His eyes were half-lidded and so, so sexy…

“We’re gonna have to put our shirts back on for dinner,” Richie whispered, unable to keep a cheeky smile off of his face.

Eddie moaned and smacked him hard across the chest. “Fuck dinner. I’m not putting that wet shirt back on. Let’s just drive through McDonald’s.”

“God, I was hoping you’d say that. You’ve never been sexier to me than you are right now,” Richie cheered, grabbing his glasses and opening the door to switch to the driver’s seat. (He considered trying to climb over the center console, but he was pretty sure he’d get stuck.)

When they were arranged in the front seat and Richie’s key was in the ignition, Eddie grabbed Richie’s free hand and held it firmly. “I’m sorry the rain ruined your plans for today. I thought the date was still pretty good, all things considered.”

Richie looked quickly at Eddie’s sweet face and felt his chest fill up with something he wasn’t quite ready to give a name to yet. “That’s a-okay, Hot Stuff. No..wait. That’s a-okay,  _boyfriend_.”

Eddie’s fingers curled tighter around his, and he switched his lights and windshield wipers on with a smile.

The rain really hadn’t ruined anything at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> skeletonscribbles.tumblr.com <3


	7. What Did It Cost? (Reddie)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You would punch Thanos for me?”
> 
> “I would,” Richie confirmed, finally looking up. His eyes were a little watery, which made Eddie smile. “At the expense of the universe, I would punch Thanos every time. For you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the fyeahreddie prompt: "heat"  
> spoilers for Avengers: Infinity War

“I still don’t fucking understand this game.”

 

Bill sat back in his chair in a huff, crossing his arms and looking thoroughly sour. They were three hours into a knockoff game of Dungeons and Dragons that they were using as a joke predictor for  _Avengers: Infinity War_ , and Bill’s characters were dropping like flies.

 

“You’re just mad because you lost Loki in the first five minutes,” Ben pointed out, nudging Bill’s knee under the table fondly. “We all told you that trying to covertly stab Thanos was stupid.”

 

“He was the only character I actually wanted to play,” Bill grumbled, “and like half of my other ones are immediate toast. There’s really only like a 20% chance when push comes to shove that I actually get to keep Vision.”

 

“I get it, bud. I’m still kinda mad we sent Valkyrie and Korg off early, too.” Bev patted Bill’s shoulder sympathetically. “I really wanted to play her.”

 

“I really wanted to play Korg,” Richie cut in, eyeing Bill narrowly, “but SOMEone--”

 

“Enough.” Mike, their long-suffering DM, was somehow still patient even through the chaos and absurdity of the last few hours. “It is how it is. It’s not like this is the way things are actually going to go down in the movie.”

 

“I fucking hope not,” Bill said, eyes flashing dangerously. “This is a shitshow.”

 

“Thanos still has two stones to get,” Mike reminded them, “so things could turn around if you keep him away from them.”

 

Richie stared blankly back at him. “Isn’t the Time Stone at Thanos’ base right now?  _With Thanos?_ Things are looking bleak, my guy.”

 

“The stone is still in my posession.” Ben was looking thoughtful. “Mike, can I roll for clairvoyance, but instead of having a sensor, can I like...see the future? You know, because I have the Time Stone?”

 

Mike grinned excitedly. “I kinda hoped you would ask. Yeah, sure, Benny boy, rev it up.”

 

Ben carefully picked up a die, rolled it, and then let it come down on the table. It was a nat-16, and Mike peered thoughtfully down at it.

 

“Okay, not perfect, but...you can look at my whole manual except the last five pages, and you can’t tell anyone else what any of it says. Cool?”

 

“I’ll take it,” Ben said, making grabby hands for Mike’s painstakingly put together campaign notes. Beside him, Bill rolled his eyes.

 

“Can we speed this up so we can get back to the Earth plotline? I’ve got a Cap I’ve barely gotten to use yet.”

 

“You can hang out with me for a while if you want,” Stan called from the other group. Despite having a healthy interest in both Dungeons and Dragons and Marvel, once they’d started divvying up the characters and Richie had grabbed Starlord, he’d opted out, claiming he was “too old for this”.

 

“No, I wanna see if they screw this up,” Bill decided, leaning his elbows on the table.

 

“Same,” echoed Bev. “Who’s there again? It’s you, Ben as Doctor Strange, Rich as Starlord, Drax, and Tony, and Eddie as Spidey, Mantis, and Nebula, yeah?”

 

“Yes,” Mike confirmed, “so, basically, Richie and Eddie versus Thanos, with a guest appearance by Ben. Ben, how’s that reading coming?”

 

“Getting there,” Ben replied distractedly, flipping back and forth between two pages with a slight frown.

 

“Okay. Richie, Eddie, you ready to move forward? Got a plan?”

 

“Ready,” Eddie said firmly, looking over at Richie with a shy smile. Eddie had been relatively quiet all day, partially because he hadn’t gotten to play Richie’s love interest because Bev had snatched up Gamora almost immediately (and then Bev had fallen into a Thanos trap and gotten her killed, which he was pretty salty about) and partially because he loved to listen to Richie through games like these. He was such a natural storyteller. They were all dying for him to actually run a campaign instead of just dicking around with characters, but he claimed that he was too lazy to put in the work of putting one together. Only Eddie and Stan knew better; knew that he was too afraid of disappointing them to be able to write anything at all, knew that it was often a chore for Richie to get out of bed, much less write a whole campaign.

 

Someday, maybe.

 

“Yeah, Spaghetti Man, we got this. Let’s kick this purple asshole in the nuts.” Richie leaned back in his chair, an easy smile on his face. “Tony Stark surprise attacks from above.”

 

“Roll for stealth. How much damage you can do will depend on how this roll turns out.” Mike moved towards Ben so they could share his notes while Ben finished reading, and the fight proceeded. Richie and Eddie had put together a really impressive plan, which culminated in Eddie’s Mantis putting Thanos to sleep so that the rest of them could pull the Infinity Gauntlet off of Thanos’ arm. It should have worked easily and seamlessly, but then Eddie’s mouth got ahead of his mind in his excitement.

 

“Mike. New thing. Nebula taunts Thanos about Gamora.”

 

Mike tutted, shaking his head. “Nebula hasn’t been told any details about what’s happened to Gamora.”

 

“Nebula can infer,” Eddie insisted. “And she does, to make Thanos suffer more.”

 

“Roll,” Mike said, gesturing broadly with his hand. Eddie quickly grabbed the dice and rolled a nat-10. “Okay, so it’s not a taunt, per-se, but Nebula says out loud that Thanos has killed Gamora. Reminder that this is the first time any of the rest of the Guardians have heard about this. Mantis, Drax, Starlord, do you do anything?”

 

“Mantis does not,” Eddie said confidently. “She’s a little busy.”

 

Richie didn’t answer right away. He was staring at Eddie with an expression that was bordering on anguish.

 

“Drax? Starlord? Anything in the heat of the moment?” Mike waved his arms in front of Richie’s face. “Earth to Rich?”

 

“Heat of the moment…” Richie muttered, eyes never leaving Eddie’s face. “Yes. Starlord punches Thanos in the face.”

 

The entire group sat still for a moment, too stunned to move, and then erupted into chaos.

 

“He does WHAT now?!?”

 

“Oh, I’m so glad I’m not a part of this particular plotline, they’re fuckin’ done now…”

 

“Richie, no!” Eddie’s eyes were frantic. “You can’t! You’ll undo everything!”

 

Ben stood up and looked around, and the rest of the table fell silent, waiting for him to dispense his newly-acquired wisdom. They were not expecting anything like the words that came out of his mouth.

 

“Let him do it.”

  
“We’ll die!” Eddie protested loudly. “Richie--”

 

“Let him,” Ben insisted, meeting Eddie’s gaze with a solid, zen look of his own, and Eddie knew he was defeated.

 

“Will you roll, Richie?” Mike asked gently, trying to get Richie’s attention. Richie was STILL staring at Eddie. It was unclear whether or not he’d been cognizant of any of the commotion that had ensued around his decision. “You gonna go through with this heat of the moment kamikaze?”

 

Slowly and deliberately, Richie nodded. “I’ll roll for damage.”

 

Mike passed him the die, and he blew on it quickly for luck, shook it once, and then let go.

 

The roll was a five. Eddie dug his fingers into his thighs to keep himself from trying to flip the table.

 

“My shit decision’s starting to look pretty good right now,” Bill murmured as Mike sighed and took his notes back from Ben.

 

“You land the punch, but it doesn’t do anything but snap him out of Mantis’ sleep. He gets the gauntlet back and easily begins to defeat your team. He goes after Tony Stark specifically because he sees him as the biggest threat.” Mike pulled his chair back a little bit and took a deep breath. “Things aren’t looking good, and I think we should break there. Take ten minutes.”

 

“Cool,” agreed Bill and Bev in unison. Bev stood and began walking towards the back door, presumably to go out and smoke, and Bill headed for the study, where Stan was waiting to hear about what had just happened. Mike collected his notes and walked towards the front door, maybe to review, maybe to get some fresh are, or maybe just to scream out into the street in frustration about how ridiculous his friends were. None of them knew for sure.

 

“We can still win, right Ben?” Eddie was still too jarred by Richie’s rash decision to feel like he was able to speak to him, so he turned desperately to Ben. “You saw outcomes where we could all live, right?”

 

“I dunno about  _all_ ,” Ben answered carefully, backing towards the back door, “but there’s hope.”

 

“Ben--” Eddie tried again, but Ben had sped up his retreat.

 

“There’s hope!” he called again, and then Eddie heard the back door slam.

 

Slowly, he turned back towards Richie, who was studying his hands with an uncharacteristic amount of focus.

 

“Care to explain?” Eddie asked quietly, drawing out each syllable in an attempt to convey his dissatisfaction.

 

Richie didn’t meet his eyes. “No.”

 

“No?” Eddie nudged his leg to try and get him to look up. “Just an impulse decision, then? I mean, dude, it was just Gamora--”

 

“I was thinking about you,” Richie muttered, nudging Eddie’s leg back but still not making eye contact. “The whole thing just...made me think about you.”

 

Eddie had no idea what to make of that.

 

“I don’t get the connection,” he finally said, tired of trying to puzzle things out by himself.

 

“Because you’re like, my Gamora,” Richie continued reluctantly, pulling at the beginnings of a tear in the left knee of his jeans. “Not like. Green. But. You’re both strong, bad at dancing, and laugh at my jokes even when it pains you to.”

 

“Gamora laughs at your jokes?” Eddie asked teasingly, trying to ignore the fact that his insides were blooming in a way that made him feel like a flower moving towards sunlight.

 

“Starlord’s jokes. You know.” Richie stomped lightly on Eddie’s foot in mock-exasperation. “Anyway, I was thinking about what I’d do in the heat of the moment if I found out you were dead. You know, a little light thinking.”

 

Eddie gave up on stopping the blooming feeling. He was a whole-ass flower, and Richie was the sun. “You would punch Thanos for me?”

 

“I would,” Richie confirmed, finally looking up. His eyes were a little watery, which made Eddie smile. “At the expense of the universe, I would punch Thanos every time. For you.”

 

“You can’t go around making stupid decisions for me,” Eddie chided, but it was obvious he didn’t mean it; his hands and body were moving forward almost robotically to wind around Richie. “Especially with the universe at stake.”

 

Richie watched Eddie curiously, hands moving reflexively down to grab him for support when he climbed on to Richie’s lap. “You really don’t know me at all, huh?”

 

“I know you,” Eddie insisted, looking down at Richie’s slight frown and mirroring it.

 

“I’m always gonna be the ‘punch Thanos’ guy, Eddie,” Richie said simply. “Stupid decisions in the heat of the moment are my thing, especially when there’s feelings involved.”

 

“Feelings?” Eddie asked, not sure whether or not he was teasing. It came out a little strangled due to his indecision, and he pulled back a little bit, embarrassed.

 

Richie took a moment, composed himself, and then looked back up, sliding his hand along Eddie’s jaw and gently moving his face so that they were making eye contact.

 

“I love you,” Richie said, so quietly Eddie wasn’t sure if he’d imagined it at first. “Of course I would punch Thanos for you. I love you.”

 

Eddie was no longer a flower; he was a cherry tree in bloom, and flowers were opening up through his face, his chest, his arms.

 

_I love you._

 

“Was this...is this...a stupid decision in the heat of the moment kind of thing?” Eddie asked after  a few silent, explosive seconds.

 

“I dunno if this qualifies as heat of the moment,” Richie replied carefully, “and it really wasn’t intended to be stupid. That doesn’t mean that it’s not, but.”

 

“It’s not,” Eddie confirmed, leaning down and brushing his lips against Richie’s. “It’s not.”

 

Richie reflexively kissed back, closing his eyes and sinking back in his chair. Both of them knew that there was an implicit promise in Eddie’s actions. It would take him a while to respond the way he wanted to - years of self-hatred and his mother’s conditioning meant that he was still in the beginning stages of learning not to bite back soft, affectionate words - but in not running away, in staying and holding on to Richie the way that he was, there was an understanding.

 

“Seems to me you shouldn’t be rewarding the man who killed the universe.” They broke apart upon hearing Bill’s voice, and turned to see him watching them from the kitchen with a strange, contorted look on his face. Beside him, Stan was picking at a fingernail, obviously uncomfortable.

 

“Just making the most of the time we have left,” Eddie responded neatly, sliding off of Richie’s lap and back into his own seat. “Are we ready to start again?”

 

“We’re picking up in Wakanda.” Mike had reentered quietly enough that none of them had noticed he’d come back, and his emergence sent a ripple of surprise through the room. “We need a break from space. Bill, are you ready?”

 

“To fucking die?” Bill grinned. “Sure, why not. Let’s go out with some style, though, yeah? Bev, you ready to have Shuuri yank this Infinity Stone out of Vision’s head?”

 

“One minute!” Bev called from the back porch.

 

“See?” Richie said, gesturing broadly, “there’s still stuff to be done. Game’s not over. Not a decision with terrible repercussions at the end of the day.”

 

“No, it was,” Bill disagreed, moving back to his seat, “no matter what you’re trying to tell yourself.”

 

Eddie slid his hand into Richie’s under the table, and held his gaze as Bev and Ben finally reappeared, looking suspiciously windblown.

 

“It wasn’t,” Eddie whispered to him. “It wasn’t.”

 

“I know,” Richie whispered back. “Bill doesn’t fucking understand this game.”

 

“Or Dungeons and Dragons, for that matter,” Eddie said, grinning, and they both fell into peals of laughter, much to the confusion of the rest of the table.

 

If Eddie had to give up the universe for that specific heat of the moment decision again, he knew in that instant that he would do it - as many times as he had to, or maybe even as many times as he could.

  
A single  _I love you_ from Richie Tozier was maybe, probably, definitely more powerful than any Infinity Stone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> skeletonscribbles.tumblr.com <3


	8. Not Just a River in Egypt (Reddie)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _I’m not like that._
> 
> No, no, no. He knew better than that now - knew better than to deny what was unmistakably there, at least to himself.
> 
> Out loud, however…well, the possibilities for what he could say out loud were endless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "You owe me a kiss."

_I’m not like that._

Those four words had become the mantra of Richie Tozier’s high school experience.

_I’m not like that._

His parents wanted him to go to college. Wentworth was specifically interested - seemed to think that Richie was similar enough to him that dentistry was on the table as a potential career option for his son.

Dentistry was NOT on the table - or in the kitchen, or even in the basement of Richie’s mind. No career was, really. All he wanted to do was tell jokes and listen to the radio. There wasn’t a major for that, or even a school, in spite of the fact that his grades were pretty uniformly excellent.

_I’m not like that._

Even shittier than Went’s dentistry bid was the fact that because he was decent at school, his teachers kept trying to nominate him for stuff, or pull him aside and lecture him on his potential. Mrs. Campanella, his English language and literature teacher, told him that his essays were good enough to submit for scholarships or other prizes, and Mr. Browne, his chemistry teacher, wanted him to join the track team to get him to, quote unquote, _let some excess energy out_ instead of bringing it all to class. Richie had thanked Mr. Browne, given him two middle fingers, and then skipped his class for the next week and a half. He still had a 96 average for the quarter, and a 98 for the year.

_I’m not like that._

Finally, and maybe most importantly, there was the tiny, miniscule, all-encompassing matter of his love-life.

Well, actually, it was more of a “lack thereof” situation. Richie hadn’t had a crush on a girl since the middle of ninth-grade, and it was freaking him the fuck out.

For the first four months of his high school existence, he’d been completely, utterly, and irrevocably in love with Brenda Arrowsmith. She was the sun, the moon, the stars, and most notably, the girl in their grade whose tits had developed first. It was only natural that Richie’s feelings would follow.

After the six-thousandth time that Brenda rejected his attempts to talk to her in the hallways before school (or at lunch, or in study hall), though, he figured that the tits weren’t worth it. He didn’t really know her anyway, he reasoned. She was probably a bitch, or she didn’t brush her teeth…or both, or some other gross thing, who was to say. It took him a couple of months, but by February, he was good and over Brenda - and if he still stopped to check her out every once in a while, it was out of artistic appreciation, nothing more.

After that, he’d elected to spend most of his time with his friends, because he knew them, he loved them, and they were more than enough to occupy his interest until (he figured) the next girl came along.

He hadn’t banked on the next girl taking so long. It was more than two years later now, and the fabled next girl still had yet to show. It was enough to make any man a little desperate, and Richie was no exception to that rule - his poor hormones were being neglected entirely.

It stood to reason, then, that the current confusion was probably hormonal payback for the last two years of dry spell. (That was what Richie was adamantly trying to tell himself, anyway.)

It was late June, and junior year had just wrapped up. The Losers had long since completed their second-to-last school supply dumping, complete with a run-in with Belch Huggins, and had moved on to their usual summer routines: either crashing at the Hanscoms’, cruising through downtown Derry and complaining about having nothing to do, or laying out in the sunshine at the quarry. Today had been a long day of quarry-ing, and Richie knew for a fact that he was sunburnt as shit. His body was already starting that hot-cold weirdness that happened whenever he forgot to reapply sunscreen at least eight times.

He’d been a little too distracted to care about his skin.

They’d all been swimming in their underwear for years - since they were kids, they’d foregone bathing suits in favor of whatever it was they had under their clothes at the time. It used to be a matter of not knowing when they were going to make the trek down to the quarry, but now it was a collective courtesy to Ben, whose mother couldn’t afford to get him a suit that fit. They never talked about it, they just dutifully peeled off their clothes whenever they were headed for the water.

Richie had looked idly down the row of his friends before they launched themselves over the cliff, expecting the same boring mix of solid colored boxers and briefs, but had instead been hit straight-on with a startling sight, which cued up a startling remembrance.

Eddie’s mom didn’t know what size he was anymore.

Eddie had never been allowed to shop for his own clothes, and wouldn’t, ever, so long as he lived in Sonia’s house. The poor boy had been pleading with Richie to consider going to college with him for almost the entirety of junior year, because he desperately needed to escape from under his mother’s thumb and he didn’t want to do it alone. _“Please, Rich,”_ he’d begged,  _“she doesn’t even know that I’ve grown three inches up and one out this year, and now all my pants are too small…”_

He was right about that, and Richie had spent the last few months teasing him about seeing his ankles…but now that it was evident that Eddie’s pants weren’t the only articles of clothing that were too small on him, Richie, for once in his life, had no joke for the situation. Eddie’s briefs were  _tight_  - the waistband was cinched almost uncomfortably around his stomach, and the rest left very little to the imagination. It was nothing Richie hadn’t seen before, but for some reason, he couldn’t tear his eyes from where the faded fabric was stretched taut against….against….

No. No way. He wasn’t LIKE that.

Before he had time to thoroughly beat himself up for the thoughts he was having, he’d been shoved into the water by the quick hands of Stanley Uris, who tacked on a “Think fast!” about thirty seconds too late. The cold water did nothing to shock Richie out of his dilemma, and when he surfaced, spluttering, he’d felt a little bit like he was still drowning…only, different.

The rest of the day had been full of similar little moments - Eddie in the sunshine, glowing in the light, Eddie laughing at something Mike said ( _why Mike and not ME_ , Richie’s traitorous brain screamed), the softness of Eddie’s voice when he gently reminded Richie to reapply sunscreen on his shoulders, the care that Eddie took with each of his friends.

_I’m not like that, I’m not like that, I’m not LIKE that–_

“Richie?” Ben was standing over him, frowning at his shoulders with obvious concern. “You okay? You’ve been quiet…and I don’t know if anyone told you, but you’re starting to–”

“Beyond starting to burn, Benny boy,” Richie confirmed miserably. “Gonna be a regular Maine steamed lobster for the next few days. I’ll be by in the morning to wrap myself in blankets and hide myself on your couch while the rest of you watch _An Officer and a Gentleman_ a-fucking-gain…”

“Bev’s coming, you ass,” Ben reminded him, nudging him a little with his foot. “She hasn’t seen it yet - and it’s one of my favorites.”

Richie rolled his eyes. “Sap.”

“Don’t blame me for your lack of taste,” Ben tutted, shaking his head. “I asked if everything was okay.”

Ben punctuated his question by looking over at where Eddie was examining rocks with Bill, Mike, and Stan, and oh,  _fuck_  no. Sometimes Ben’s all-knowing attitude towards the relationship dynamics of their group was awesome…and sometimes it was actually the worst.

“I’m great,” Richie said loudly, glaring furiously up at Ben. “Hungry as fuck, though. I’ll kiss the next person that offers me a bite to eat, I swear to fucking–”

The corners of Ben’s mouth twisted up into a strange smile, and Richie was seized with cold fear. He had a feeling he knew what Ben was thinking about doing, and he almost couldn’t believe it. Such behavior was beneath Ben, surely - Stan or Bill would have done it without hesitation, but Ben wouldn’t betray him, right?

“Hey, Eddie,” Ben called, and Eddie looked up from his rocks, frowning over at Ben and Richie. “You packed snacks, right?”

“My mom shoved a bunch of Hostess food at me before I left the house, yeah,” Eddie confirmed. “Said she didn’t want it in the house any more. She’s all mad at herself because she binged a whole box of Ring Dings yesterday. Why, you hungry?”

Ben looked down at Richie, looking a little guilty, but mostly bemused, and Richie wasn’t sure if he’d ever felt so betrayed before in his life.

“I’ll kill you, Hanscom,” he whispered, eyes glued to Eddie as Eddie’s feet began to move in their direction.

“Not me,” Ben responded to Eddie, and then smiled and backed up a little bit. Eddie’s eyes flickered from Ben to Richie, and Richie could almost see the panic make its way across Eddie’s face like an ocean wave when he took in the condition of Richie’s chest and shoulders.

“Oh, Richie, you’re burnt! Here, I have lotion in my bag…and snacks, too, if you want. You like Twinkies, right?”

Eddie quickly grabbed his bag from off of his towel and began rifling through it, and Richie tried and failed to keep his eyes away from the flex of Eddie’s thighs as he bent over. Ben had disappeared, presumably while Richie’s eyes and mind were occupied by Eddie’s fussing, and Richie found himself kind of impressed with the whole situation in spite of himself. Ben was a lot more crafty than Richie had given him credit for, it seemed.

“Here.” Eddie finally located what he was looking for and tossed it at Richie’s feet. Richie picked up Eddie’s tub of aloe tenuously and opened it, swiping his fingers through the slimy substance and quietly smearing it along his collarbones. He ignored the Twinkies that Eddie had also tossed over entirely, even though his stomach was practically screaming for them.

“Thanks,” Richie said quietly, not looking at Eddie. He couldn’t look at Eddie any more today, because if he did, admissions would have to be made, and there was no fucking way that was going to happen. He wasn’t like that.

“Richie!” Stan and Bill were making their way back over, with Mike and Ben in tow. Richie had literally no idea what magic Ben had performed to teleport himself back there, but it didn’t matter now, because Richie had bigger things to contend with - namely, a very smug Stanley Uris, whose voice was dripping with glee as he asked, “Is it true that you told Ben you’d kiss the next person that fed you?”

Eddie’s sharp inhale was almost painfully audible, and Richie winced when he saw Eddie’s face turn an embarrassed red out of the corner of his eye.

“I couldn’t do that to Eds,” Richie said quickly, trying to sound more lighthearted than he was actually feeling. “He’d probably catch something from me, given that he tells me every day that I’m filthy and disease-riddled. Also, this mouth is the property of Sonia K., and I really couldn’t betray her like this - not with her own son…”

Eddie, surprisingly, didn’t try and stop Richie’s tirade or chastise Richie for being vulgar. Instead, he crossed his arms over his chest slowly, taking a deep breath like he was trying to stabilize himself without his inhaler. Richie chanced a glance at Eddie’s face, and felt his heart stutter at the sight - the poor boy was clearly trying to bury a response, but his eyes betrayed him. They were glassy and squinted, almost as if….as if….

No. Eddie wasn’t like that either. Was he…?

“It’s time to go home, right?” Eddie asked suddenly, voice disarmingly shaky. “We should go? Stan, do you have–”

“Already on it,” Stan said quickly, looking surprisingly remorseful. He gave Mike a meaningful look, and Mike shook his head, raised his eyebrows at Richie, and then turned his attention back towards Stan.

“You get the bag, I’ll get the towels?”

“Sounds great,” said Stan, and the two of them went to collect belongings, with Eddie anxiously scuttling along after them.

Richie was left to be stared down by Bill and Ben, who were both looking at him like he’d embarrassed them. He’d been on the receiving end of this look a zillion times, but for whatever reason, this time felt different, and Richie found himself wanting to look away.

Bill seemed to speak for both of them when he said, “Grow up, Ruh-Richie.”

Richie didn’t respond, because he couldn’t. He couldn’t grow up. Growing up meant accepting responsibility for things, and there were certain things that he had absolutely no intention of coming to terms with.

“It’s okay,” Ben told him kindly.

It wasn’t okay. He wasn’t like that.

That said, the less they knew, the better things would be for him…so….

“Let’s go get dinner,” he said, effectively closing the conversation.

–

27 years later, Richie still had yet to take Bill’s advice.

Six out of seven of them were back in Derry for the Losers Club reunion that none of them actually wanted to attend. It was a different six than it had been that day in the quarry - they had Beverly, this time, and Stan had been lost along the wayside (Richie didn’t want to call it what it was yet; he wasn’t ready), but the energy was not at all dissimilar to that particular summer day in June.

Well, actually, the interdimensional demon part was putting something of a damper on things, but that being what it was, the vibe was close enough.

In fact, if Richie closed his eyes and let his imagination take over, it was all too easy to slip back into being sixteen again. The wind against the tall grass of the Barrens made a very specific sound, and that partnered with the bossy tirade that Bill was currently on gave the whole scenario an early 1990s vibe that was making Richie feel…nervous, for some reason.

No. Not just some reason. His heart wasn’t hammering outrageously against his chest for  _just some reason_.

When he opened his eyes, Eddie Kaspbrak was looking back at him, and the familiar gaze was like an electric shock to Richie’s system.

Fuck. He’d spent his entire adult life trying to convince himself he was a certain way, and all it had taken Eddie to undo years and years’ worth of progress was a single glance.

_I’m not like that._

No, no, no. He knew better than that now - knew better than to deny what was unmistakably there, at least to himself.

Out loud, however…well, the possibilities for what he could say out loud were endless.

“–split up,” Bill was saying, voice firmer and more confident than it had ever been in his youth. The stutter was mostly gone, now, and Bill claimed that it was completely gone outside of Derry. Richie looked forward to testing whether or not that was true after everything they had to do in Derry was said and done…if there was an after, anyway. (Again, Richie wasn’t much for dwelling on the nasty parts of things. He’d think about it later. Only actions in the now.) “Me and Mike, Ben and B-Bev, Richie and Eddie? Just to see. Report b-back in an hour.”

“Can do, boss,” Ben said, looking not-so-secretly thrilled to have a moment with Beverly, who was smiling over at him with undisguised fondness.

“Richie? Eddie?” Bill looked between the two of them, seemingly trying to assess the situation he’d created. “All right?”

Richie looked at Eddie in the sunlight - his hair was haloed in it to the point where it almost looked angelically blonde - and swallowed his fear as best he could.

“We’ll be good,” Richie promised, avoiding everyone’s eyes and stuffing his hands in his pockets.

“Yeah,” Eddie said softly, “that’ll probably work out just fine. What time do you want us back?”

“Two,” Bill repeated. “Good luck.” He turned on his heel and walked off after Mike, and Richie and Eddie were left alone together.

This was going to be absolutely unbearable. Richie was struck by a sudden memory - a conversation he’d had with Bill and Ben about growing up - and wished in that moment that he never had. He had been right - adulthood had provided him with realizations he didn’t want and accompanying responsibilities, and he wished he’d had the option to opt out of the whole thing. It didn’t seem worth it.

Better, he thought as Eddie walked towards him, all nerves and sharp angles and sweetness, to remain in that childhood denial than to face the reality of what lay thick in the air between the two of them.

“You ready to go, Spaghetti?” Richie asked, feeling the old name slip though his lips before he’d even really remembered it.

Eddie stared back at him, lips drawn into a tight line. “No nicknames.”

“No promises on that,” Richie said, not trusting himself to keep ‘Eds’ and ‘Spaghetti’ out of his mouth. “Any place in particular that you think is worth exploring?”

Eddie thought for a moment. “The quarry.”

That hadn’t been what Richie was expecting. He cocked an eyebrow in surprise. “You saw the demon thing at the quarry?”

“No, never,” Eddie said, finally allowing his face to relax - and was that the ghost of a smile threatening to make its way across his face? “That’s why I want to go.”

Richie’s loud laughter was surprising even to himself, but he found himself grateful for it as it overtook him. All of the nerves and craziness that had built up over the past few days were pouring out of him, and Eddie could feel it, too - after a moment, he joined Richie in laughing, and then neither of them could stop. It was the end of everything, and they were locked in hysterical laughter, too paralyzed by it to move.

Finally, Richie took a deep breath and collected himself. “I don’t know if I can go to the quarry. I don’t have sunscreen.”

“Yeah, you’ll burn in no time,” Eddie agreed, voice still wobbly from laughter. “Granted, it helps that you’re not in your underwear.”

“That can change,” Richie said, mouth too far ahead of his mind for him to come to terms with the implications of his taunt. In fact, he didn’t really realize exactly what he’d said until Eddie flushed crimson, and then the mood was back to the pre-laugh tension and fuck, he usually had a better handle on himself, didn’t he? What was it about Derry, Maine that broke all his filters?

Before he could apologize, though, Eddie pressed on. “Remember the summer before senior year?” he asked, threading his fingers together in a way that Richie vaguely remembered meant that he was nervous.

Richie swallowed hard. “I mean, not very well, what with the supernatural amnesia and all.”

“You’ll remember this day,” Eddie said, and Richie immediately knew the day that he was referring to - he’d been thinking about it ever since Mike had led them down towards this part of town. “It was a weird day for you. You were all in your own head, and you ignored all the times I told you to put sunscreen on so you got stupid burnt and had to stay inside for a week afterwards.”

Adolescent guilt and shame came flooding through Richie like a monsoon - all of the stupid feelings, all of the frantic denial was right there at the surface of his consciousness. Eddie had to be able to sense it - but he was showing no signs of being cued-in to Richie’s tangle of feelings. He just stood, tired and nervous and _beautiful,_  and waited for Richie to respond.

“You gave me a Twinkie,” Richie finally offered, because it was all he could think of to say.

“You owe me a kiss,” Eddie replied quickly, as if afraid the words would dry up in his mouth if he didn’t get them out fast enough.

They stared at each other in terror for a few seconds, and it was enough to make Richie wonder if maybe this version of Eddie in front of him was actually the fucking clown, taking Eddie’s form to make Richie remember all of the ways that he was secretly weak.

“I didn’t think you wanted one,” he said carefully, watching Eddie’s face to gauge his reaction and hoping he wasn’t playing Russian roulette with his own life.

“I…” Eddie tried, screwing his eyes shut to try and put his thoughts together. “It’s not about what I want.” He pointed to his head, tapping at his temple. “It’s about what I  _want_.” He then moved his hand down to rest right over his heart, and Richie felt that sunburn feeling again - hot and cold, all at once.

Richie stepped forward, staring down at the new lines of Eddie’s face and wanting desperately to memorize them all - to not forget that he  _was_  like this, that he was capable of this kind of love.

If this was the clown’s way of trapping him, then so be it. Richie would happily die for this.

“Are you ready?” Richie asked, and Eddie blinked once, twice, three times back up at him. He’d obviously not been sure as to whether or not Richie would seriously consider his offer.

“No,” Eddie said honestly. “But please do it anyway.”

Before he could change his mind, Richie closed the distance between himself and Eddie, took Eddie’s face in his hands, and captured his lips in a gentle kiss.

He understood now, 27 fucking years later, why he hadn’t crushed on girls in high school.

How could he have spared so much as a glance at anyone else when he’d had this right in front of him? Eddie’s soft lips, careful hands, fierce looks, and unwavering devotion were all that his brain had ever been tuned-in to. Brenda Arrowsmith and all the big-breasted women that followed had been nice to look at, of course, but this…

Eddie kissed him back after a quick moment, and Richie couldn’t help the soft noise that he made as Eddie’s hands slid up and into his hair.

“Your hair’s shorter, now,” Eddie murmured against Richie’s mouth, combing his fingers through the curly, salt-and-pepper ringlets around Richie’s ears. “That summer…I used to fantasize about having my hands in it, especially when it was wet down at the quarry–”

“Your underwear was too tight that summer,” Richie responded, pure relief flooding his system as the confession spilled out. “How was a boy supposed to think about anything else when Sonia K. was unknowingly providing him with wet dream material for the rest of his–”

“Wanted to rub that after-sun lotion all over your shoulders,” Eddie continued, punctuating his thoughts with kisses. “Your face, your chest, your legs…and I hated myself for it, because you were such an idiot, but I also kind of liked it, too, because…because–”

“I didn’t want to be….I didn’t want people to find out–”

“Me either! If my mother had known–”

“Didn’t want to be like that, to have another reason for people to be on my ass all the time–”

“Another reason that I was sick–”

“I’m sorry.”

Eddie pulled back a little further upon hearing Richie’s apology. He studied Richie’s face, eyes sweeping over the freckles on Richie’s cheeks and ears, and then smiled - the first genuine smile Richie had seen him give since 1994.

“It doesn’t matter,” Eddie said thoughtfully, hands still occupied with Richie’s curls. “We’re here.”

“We’re here,” Richie agreed, liking that the phrase erased both the past and the present - the mistakes they’d made as teens and the horror they were sure to face in the next few days. “We’re here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> skeletonscribbles.tumblr.com <3


	9. like a thief in the night (Stanlon)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richie Tozier is a terrible thief, and Stanley Uris has an incredible memory for detail.
> 
> Mike Hanlon learns both of these things the hard way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompts: "So you've started stealing my socks now?" and "You owe me a cookie" :)

It was rare that Mike Hanlon felt that he didn’t know what to do.

 

He’d grown up knowing that his father would insist upon his being prepared for every minor occurrence, and so he had become a young man that was fastidious about knowing what he was doing before he did it. He researched, he practiced, he did whatever he could do to make sure that he was ready and able to face any task that came his way.

 

The irony of the fact that it was love (of all things!) tripping him up wasn’t lost on Mike. He’d read countless love stories, and had watched his friends fall in and out of love a zilliion times over the years. He thought he was prepared to take on the challenge.

 

He was very, very wrong. Love in practice was way different than love in theory, and Mike wasn’t even sure how to talk to the object of his affections, let alone, like...ask the person out or whatever.

 

Unfortunately, people were starting to notice his lack of confidence.

 

“Has everything been all right with you, Mike?” Stan asked him one day as they were preparing to head home after a sleepover at the Toziers’. “Or, rather, is there something you’re upset with me over? We haven’t really talked in weeks.”

 

“Oh.” Mike  _ had _ been avoiding Stan, but it had nothing to do with being upset - quite the opposite, actually. “Um. No, we’re good, Stan. I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings.”

 

Stan smiled a rare, warm smile, and touched Mike genially on the arm. Mike felt the pressure of Stan’s hand on his elbow like it was the only thing keeping him tethered to the ground. Perfect, straightforward, no-nonsense Stanley Uris, keeping Mike’s life in place without even knowing it.

 

God...the love stories he’d read hadn’t even come close to describing what it really felt like to have a dizzying, world-altering, soul-shattering crush. This was torture.

 

“I’m not hurt, Mike, don’t worry. I just wanted to make sure that you were okay.”

 

“I’m okay,” Mike confirmed, and watched with a knot in his stomach as Stan nodded, confident that he’d resolved things, and walked out of the Toziers’ front door and towards his old blue Ford Taurus.

 

When Mike went back to the farm, he was greeted with the exciting news that his mother and father were planning on managing the farm themselves that morning, so he wouldn’t be required to join them until the afternoon. Great. More time to himself to mull over how stiltedly awkward his interactions with Stan had become.

 

If he’d just had more time...if he’d asked Stan to wait a minute (no, that would have been too weird), or offered to carpool (too late - they’d both taken their own cars over, and also they didn’t live anywhere near each other, so that was out), or even offered to take him out to coffee (too much like a DATE, Mike, come on), he could have explained himself, or at least gotten over the stupid mind block that seemed to be popping up every time Stan was within fifty feet of him.

 

How could he buy himself a few extra minutes with Stanley Uris?

 

The answer didn’t come to him that day, but rather a few days later, when he was going through his drawers in an attempt to find his favorite purple t-shirt and prove to his mother that she was crazy for thinking that it was in the wash. He’d just about made it to the bottom of his shirts drawer when he saw it: a crisp white button down with navy blue pinstripe patterning.

 

How had Stan’s shirt ended up in his drawer?

 

He had a veritable collection of clothing from the rest of the Losers, now, because they spent a lot of time at Mike’s parents’ farm in the summer and as such, lost items weren’t a huge deal, because they knew that everything would turn up again eventually. The current pile included but was not limited to: Bill’s cheap cereal-box watch, an old t-shirt of Ben’s, a belt that was too small to fit any Loser but Bev, tiny tube socks that Mike was pretty sure he’d seen Eddie wearing a few weeks ago, and a pair of Richie’s underwear (it was a long story)...but Stan never forgot anything. Stan kept a detailed inventory of all of his things, clothing included...and even if a shirt  _ had _ slipped under Stan’s radar, there was no reason at all for it to be in Mike’s  _ drawer _ .

 

Mike’s mother had been right about the purple shirt, but Mike couldn’t even bring himself to be mad about it. He had an opportunity in his drawer, now, and he was ready to use it.

 

He pulled Stan aside after the Losers’ next excursion to the Aladdin, and opened his bag awkwardly, hands fumbling with the zipper, and then with the shirt.

 

Stan’s eyebrows shot up. “Is that mine?”

 

“Um.” Mike moved a hand up to his face, half mortified and half nervously excited. “I found it in my room. Figured you were probably looking for it.”

 

“Oh.” Stan gently took the shirt from Mike’s hands, and then smiled softly up at him - and oh  _ lord _ , had Mike ever seen Stan smile like that? It was like he’d let his guard completely down - there was no sharp, cynical edge to his features at all, only genuine appreciation, and Mike felt all of his resolve shift towards a single goal: getting Stan to smile at him like that more often.

 

“Right.” Mike found his voice for long enough to shakily respond. “Yes. Right. Um. Did you like the movie?”

 

Stan laughed softly, and shrugged his shoulders, turning to rejoin the rest of the group. “It was fine. Could definitely tell that it was Richie’s choice today. You?”

 

Mike stared at him for a moment, and then his legs kicked in, and he was shuffling along after Stan. “I thought it was funny - and it was probably extra funny for me, because I was sitting next to Eddie, who just kept turning redder and redder the whole time. Richie mouthing along to the dumb jokes really got to him, I guess.”

 

Stan shook his head, and Mike watched his curls bounce, entranced. “Those two are such a mess. I hope they sort themselves out soon...it’s getting annoying.”

 

It took Mike a minute to process what Stan was saying, but once he’d realized the implication in Stan’s words, the beginnings of a plan lit in the empty spaces of his mind.

 

“So you’re saying you think Richie needs help with Eddie?” he asked quickly, wanting to make sure he was understanding things right.

 

Stan paused and looked back towards Mike over his shoulder. “I mean, not exactly my point, but Richie could always use assistance in interacting with other people.” He narrowed his eyes. “Why?”

 

“No reason,” Mike said quickly, trying to figure out the best way to get Richie alone.

 

\----

 

Mike didn’t end up having to plan a thing. Richie showed up by himself the next day.

 

“Buenos dias, Mikey!” Mike looked up from his gardening with a frown as Richie drove his banged-up old truck off the road and over the grass towards where Mike was squatting. 

 

“What do you want, Tozier?” Mike asked, willing Richie to stop before he accidentally ran over an important plant.

 

Richie slammed on the brakes, and Mike winced at the high-pitched noise they made. Richie really needed to have his car looked at. Mike was surprised that Eddie hadn’t taken a wrench to it already, but considering the state of things between Richie and Eddie, it kind of made sense that normal friend occurrences were falling by the wayside.

 

“Was in the neighborhood,” Richie said, opening the truck door and swinging himself out. “Thought I’d stop by and pet a chicken.”

 

Mike crossed his arms over his chest. Richie had pet the chickens exactly one time - one peck on the hand had been enough to get him to swear up and down that they were evil and that he would never touch them again. “Interesting, but why are you really here?”

 

Richie stopped and stood next to Mike, lanky frame towering over him in the sun. It would have been intimidating if it were anyone other than Richie. “Stan sent me over. Didn’t tell me why, but made that really scary Stan face at me, so I figured I should actually see what he was on about.”

 

Mike nodded, wondering how Stan knew that he wanted to talk to Richie. That boy was better at social inferences than anyone gave him credit for.  “I won’t tell him you’re scared of him if you don’t tell him what I’m about to tell you.”

 

Richie’s face lit up, and he crashed down onto his ass, sitting cross-legged next to Mike. “Secrets, eh Micycle? I happen to be a master secret keeper, you know--”

 

“Remember when you told the whole ninth grade that Bill was interested in Kelly Jenkins?” Mike asked flatly.

 

Richie was undeterred. “Details,” he said flippantly, grinning at Mike. “So, what’s up?”

 

“I, um.” Mike felt his face going red, and silently cursed. Richie was never going to let him live this down. “I want to….talk to Stan more.”

 

Richie’s half-surprised, half-elated face looked a little bit like someone had electrocuted him. It was very unattractive, and Mike wanted to tell him so, but Richie was talking before Mike had the chance to say anything. “YOU HAVE A CRUSH ON STAN THE M--PHHHH”

 

Mike clapped a hand over Richie’s mouth, and braced himself for the inevitable licking. Sure enough, after about three seconds he felt Richie’s tongue against his palm...but he wouldn’t relent, not this time. “Shut your trash mouth, Trashmouth. Yes, I am…. _ interested _ in Stan...and you are not going to tell anybody.  _ Anybody. _ Are we clear?”

 

Mike removed his hand from Richie’s mouth with a jerk, and Richie was left with his tongue hanging uselessly out. He spluttered, took a quick breath, and then nodded, an inquisitive look in his eyes.

 

“Crystal. Gotta say, though, sexuality-wise I’ve always thought you were more of a Prince than a David Bowie.”

 

Mike shrugged. “Eh. I just like who I like, I think. Doesn’t really matter. My folks don’t care, as long as I’m being responsible.”

 

“You and Stan are like...the definition of responsible.” Richie immediately made a face at that realization. “Oh, God, that’s terrible.”

 

“Anyways,” Mike continued, ignoring Richie’s obvious disgust at being surrounded by people who actually did well with rules and structure, “I think I’ve got an idea about how to buy myself some extra time with Stan without being weird or forward about it, and I need your help.”

 

Richie held out two fingers. “Two things. One, I don’t know what your plan is at this point, but knowing both of you I guarantee you’re wrong about things not being weird.”

 

“Fuck you,” Mike said sourly. “What’s the second thing?”

 

Richie leaned up so that he was uncomfortably close to Mike’s face. “What’s in it for me?” he asked, putting on a voice, and Mike felt like he really had no choice at that point but to shove him.

 

“Pick an accent and stick with it, dude.” Mike shuddered and stood up, picking up his gardening shovel. “I was thinking I could make sure you and Eddie got some alone time at sleepovers. You know, so you don’t have to keep making up excuses for dragging him off.”

 

Richie’s eyes widened comically behind his glasses. “Wh--excuses? Me?”

 

“All of us know that Eddie wouldn’t actually join you for a smoke break.” Mike rolled his eyes,and offered Richie a hand up. Richie took it begrudgingly, and Mike pulled him to his feet. “Admit it - neither of you are smoking out there when you go.”

 

“Fine, fine.” Richie was uncharacteristically flustered: his ears were red, and he kept fidgeting with his hands. Mike thought it was kind of funny - like watching a cat try and fit itself into a space it was too small for. “How long are we talking, here?”

 

“Upwards of thirty minutes,” Mike promised. “Way better than the ten minutes here and there that y’all have been sneaking.”

 

Richie pretended to consider Mike’s proposal, but they both knew what he was going to say. “Deal,” he finally conceded, reaching out a hand for Mike to shake. “Now, what’s this plan of yours? Oh my God, wait - Stan...plan…..”

 

“Don’t go down that road,” Mike warned, “and here’s what I think I want to do.” 

 

By some incredible miracle, Richie managed to hold off his laughter until after Mike was finished explaining his whole idea. Unfortunately, that meant that when Richie started laughing, he couldn’t stop.

 

“Mike!” Richie wheezed. He’d fallen back down in his fit of giggles, and Mike was scowling at where he was curled up on the ground. No way he was getting a hand up this time. “That is…….without a doubt……..the STUPIDEST--”

 

“Will you do it or not?” Mike asked, exasperated.

 

“Yeah,” Richie said, with obvious fondness in his voice. “You know what, I fucking will.”

 

\----

 

Richie was an idiot, but he was an idiot that was true to his word, and two days later, Mike was in possession of Stanley Uris’s watch.

 

“Stole it from right off his wrist,” Richie had bragged, “arcade finger skills at work. If you ever need a heist team, Richie Tozier’s your man--”

 

“Thanks, I’m not bailing you out of jail,” Mike had told him, shutting the door in his face and mentally trying to make a list of things that the Losers could do without Richie and Eddie. (It was a long list of things. Richie and Eddie were so loud most of the time that it was often actually more pleasant to do certain things without them.)

 

Stan had been far more startled to see the watch than he had been to see the shirt.

 

“Where did you get this?” he asked incredulously when Mike handed it to him outside of the ice cream parlor. He’d asked Mike to hold his ice cream while he re-fastened the watch to his wrist, and Mike had acquiesced excitedly - it felt kind of official, to be holding Stan’s ice cream like that. He wondered if that was how Richie and Eddie felt all the time.

 

“Found it in my bag when I got back from the Aladdin a few days ago,” Mike lied. “Must have fallen off and in...lucky it didn’t land on the floor of the theatre.”

 

“Strange,” Stan frowned, “I thought I had it when I got home from the movies…”

 

Mike shrugged helplessly. “Minds are weird things. Yours must be playing tricks on you.”

 

Stan sighed and shook his head, holding out his hand to indicate that he’d like his cup of ice cream back. “It’s too much time with Bill is what it is. He’s making me forgetful by proxy.”

 

Mike jolted upright at Stan’s words. Had Stan and Bill been hanging out together?  _ Privately? _ He could see why Bill might want to spend time with Stan - Stan was the funniest Loser, after all, and the smartest, and the bravest, and oh God, Bill probably had a crush on Stan, didn’t he? He would be stupid not to….but...was Bill even gay? Did Stan even--

 

“Not that I spend time with Bill outside of group hangouts, of course,” Stan continued, interrupting Mike’s frantic train of thought, “but still.”

 

Mike shifted, embarrassed at the path his thoughts had taken. “Do you spend time with anyone outside of group hangouts?”

 

“No,” Stan said, turning to face Mike. “Not really...but I’d like to, with some people.”

 

Mike felt his eyes grow wide, and he swallowed hard, not knowing how to respond. “Well--”

 

“You guys coming?” Bev called pushing her bike up next to them. “Hurry up and finish eating, slowpokes. We want to swim.”

 

“We’ll be right there,” Stan promised.

 

“I think it might take Richie and Eddie a while, though,” Mike quickly added, trying to uphold his end of the bargain he’d made. “Eddie spilled his and had to get a whole new one. They’ll probably be late.”

 

Bev rolled her eyes. “Idiots. Anyways, hurry up. Bill, Ben and I are leaving.”

 

Once Bev was out of earshot, Stan turned back to Mike with a bemused grin. “Eddie spilled his ice cream, huh?”

 

“You don’t want to know,” Mike muttered, and begrudgingly began making his way towards the trash can.

 

\----

 

Mike’s plan was short-lived for two reasons: Richie was a terrible thief, and Stan had excellent attention to detail.

 

The ice cream cover-up had assured Richie that his arrangement with Mike was mutually beneficial, and so he’d agreed to continue smuggling items over for Mike in exchange for the occasional cut-out with Eddie. Unfortunately, he was stupid enough to try and make a grab for Stan’s stuff on the night of a sleepover at the Uris residence, and Stan was a notorious stickler about people touching his things.

 

The confrontation had gone down in Stan’s room, while most of the Losers were curled up in the Uris living room watching  _ Nightrider. _ Mike had noticed Richie sneak off, and had subsequently noticed Stan follow Richie upstairs with suspicious eyes, so he figured it was probably in his best interest to follow both of them to make sure they didn’t end up in a no-holds-barred brawl.

 

He had, of course, been right.

 

“So you’ve started stealing my socks, now?” Stan was hissing on the other side of the door when Mike reached the top of the stairs. “What the fuck are you doing in here, Richie? Are you just trying to mess up my stuff to make me mad, because--”

 

“No, dipshit,” Richie shot back, “I’m looking for my bag--”

 

“Your bag is downstairs and you know it,” Stan snapped. “What is going ON with you? I thought you’d be happy with the fact that Mike’s trying to give you and Eddie some space, not try and sneak off on your own to cause chaos, you idiot.”

 

“You know about the space stuff?” Richie sounded confused, and a little upset. “Wait, how much of my agreement with Mike are you in on?”

 

“Mike’s helping you and Eddie,” Stan said carefully. “That’s it, right?”

 

Richie gave a short laugh. “Ohhhh, nope. Stan my Man, you are in for quite a... _ como se dice _ ….surprise--”

 

“That’s enough, Richie.” Mike entered the room before Richie could do any more damage. He knew what that probably meant as far as what he’d have to admit to Stan, but it was better coming from him than it was from Richie, even if that meant that Mike’s stomach was currently doing Olympic-level backflips. “Go back downstairs. Eddie’s wondering where you are.”

 

Richie looked as if he kind of wanted to stay and find out what the outcome of the Stan and Mike discussion was going to be, but the mention of Eddie’s name was enough to lure him back downstairs. “Aight. Good luck, friends. Thoughts and prayers to you in this trying time.”

 

Richie departed as quickly as his gangly limbs would allow, and Mike was left staring back over at Stan.

 

“What was he talking about, Mike?” Stan asked quietly, crossing his arms over his chest.

 

“I asked him to take your stuff,” Mike explained, unable to meet Stan’s eyes as he confessed.

 

Stan jerked backwards in surprise. “Why?”

 

Mike took a deep breath, concentrated on Stan’s forehead, and said, “I wanted to have an excuse to spend more time with you.”

 

Stan’s eyes widened, and he blinked at Mike for a few silent, agonizing seconds.

 

Then, he burst out laughing.

 

“Mike!” Stan was doubled over, almost in tears already. “Oh my gosh, Mike - I did the same thing!”

 

Mike squinted at him, unable to figure out what was so funny. “I don’t follow.”

 

“I made sure that shirt was in your dresser!” Stan wheezed, looking up at Mike with bright eyes. “I wanted an excuse to talk to  _ you!” _

 

Oh. OH. That made a lot of sense - there was really no way the shirt would have gotten into Mike’s dresser if Stan hadn’t put it there himself. Oh.

 

_ Oh. _

 

Stan had stopped laughing, and was moving slowly towards Mike - shyly, like he almost expected Mike to turn him away.

 

“Of course, I might be misunderstanding,” Stan said in a low voice, and the air suddenly felt heavy.

 

Mike willed himself to look anywhere but Stan’s lips when he responded, “I don’t think that you are.”

 

“Good,” Stan whispered, close enough to pull in and….and….

 

Mike had never felt less prepared for a moment in his life, but it was upon him: Stanley Uris was brushing his lips against Mike’s lips, and every single one of Mike’s nerve endings was on fire.

 

Stan pulled back far enough to be able to examine Mike’s face, and seemed to be satisfied with what he found there. He smiled, brushing his fingertips against Mike’s cheek.

 

“You want to spend some time together, maybe?” Mike asked, words like a waterfall out of his mouth. “You and me? Alone? Together? That was what you were talking about at the ice cream place, right?”

 

“Very good,” Stan nodded, beaming. “I was, and I would like to.”

 

“Adorable. Fucking disgusting, actually.”

 

Apparently, Richie hadn’t left after all. Mike and Stan turned to find him leaning against the doorway.

 

No, wait - Eddie was in tow. He’d left, and then come back.

 

“Is there something you want, Richie?” Stan asked coldly.

 

“Yes.” Richie jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Get out.”

 

Stan gaped at him. “This is my room!”

 

“And Mike owes us some alone time,” Richie said, gesturing between himself and Eddie, who looked absolutely mortified at Richie’s behavior, “and you, Staniel, promised me a cookie for sneaking that shirt into Mike’s drawer, and here I am, cookieless, so the least you could do is clear the room and let Eds and I get busy on your bed--”

 

“Not on the bed,” Stan hissed at the same time that Eddie yelped, “Gross, Richie!”

 

“Okay, okay.” Richie held up his hands. “Not on the bed, clothes stay on, and so on and so forth. Now scoot. Bill only sleeps in thirty minute increments. Fucking psycho.”

 

Mike and Stan looked at each other, and Stan proffered a hand out to Mike.

 

“You ready to take this outside?”

 

Mike smiled. Finally, finally, finally, the reins were back in his hands - finally, he knew what to do.

 

“Let’s go.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> skeletonscribbles.tumblr.com <3


	10. Things Keep Getting Better (Reddie)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bev wants her boys to feel beautiful, always, and to make sure they do, she sometimes has to scheme a little.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the prompt: “you’re so cute” :)

Beverly Marsh had always thought that her boys were the six most beautiful people on Earth. Maybe she was biased, or maybe she just saw what she wanted to see because they’d taken her in when no one else would...but no matter the reason, she was adamant about it: every single member of the Losers Club was a sight to behold.

 

The rest of the Losers….disagreed, to say the least. Years of bullying and discomfort in their own skin had been generally shitty for their collective self-esteem - and Bev included herself in that collective, but that wasn’t the point.

 

The point was that it had become a mission of hers to not only let them know that she thought they were beautiful, but to get them to believe it themselves.

 

Some of the boys were proving more difficult to convince than others.

 

Bill was probably the easiest, which had surprised Bev, because when she’d met him, he’d been pretty stuck under the weight of his own voice - of his own stutter. Time and his friends had changed that, though, and by the time high school rolled around, all Bill needed was the Losers around him and an assuring glance from Bev, and he could light up a room.

 

Mike had also blossomed readily since they’d met him that fateful summer, and while Bev liked to credit that to the heart-to-hearts they’d shared during their semi-frequent walks to and from Mike’s farm, she knew that a lot of it had to do with the removal of Henry Bowers. Bowers had been so bent on making Mike’s life a living hell that his absence had all but provided Mike with an opportunity to reinvent himself, and Mike had absolutely soared with his new freedom. Bev was wholly grateful...and so was Derry High’s football team.

 

Ben had taken some coaxing, but eventually she’d worn him down. In his case, she KNEW it was her encouragement that had done the trick, and she couldn’t help but loiter outside of his physics class sometimes, smiling to herself as he confidently explained some feat of engineering to his classmates. Sometimes he’d see her watching and a little color would rise to his cheeks, and that….well, that was a whole new kind of beautiful, right there. Even  _ he _ couldn’t put that kind of genuine feeling into words - and he could put  _ a lot _ into words, as evidenced by Bev’s growing collection of the pieces he’d submitted to the school’s literary magazine.

 

Stan was difficult. Where the others genuinely wanted, deep down, to be able to love themselves and move forward confidently, Stan seemed to enjoy wallowing in his darker thoughts. No matter how many times she whispered compliments and confidences to him in the halls, at movie nights, or as they were walking through the tall grass of the Barrens towards some adventure or another, he always regarded her with blank eyes and a sad smile. He kept all of them at arm’s length, in fact, and she hadn’t yet figured out why - something in her gut was telling her that something had maybe gone wrong right away with Stan, right when the seven of them had come together, but she couldn’t remember what, so she and Stan remained at an impasse for now.

 

Things had really turned around for Eddie when she’d brought him clothes shopping. Before Bev, all of Eddie’s clothes were either Sonia bought or Sonia approved, and as such, Eddie had never really gotten to see himself accurately. Bev had always had an eye for fashion (and more importantly, how fashion made people feel), and so saw right away how much of an impact Eddie’s pre-ordained wardrobe had on his self-esteem. At the beginning of their freshman year of high school, she’d caught him looking despairingly at his own legs, stomach, and arms in the mirror, seemingly wondering where he’d gone wrong, and that very night she had snuck him out of Sonia’s house, brought him to Freese’s, and bought him a shirt and a pair of pants that actually fit with money she’d wheedled out of her Aunt “for school supplies”. She did that every time she was able to scrounge up some money, and in three months’ time, Eddie’s confidence had done a complete 180. It was almost hard to recognize him at the end of their freshman year - he’d turned himself from someone who got shoved into lockers into someone that people smiled at in the hallways.

 

No one was more attuned to Eddie’s transformation than Richie. In fact, Bev was finding it difficult to get Richie’s own attractiveness through to him, because he was zero percent focused on himself and about eighty percent focused on Eddie. (The remaining twenty percent of his attention was divided pretty evenly between the rest of the Losers, Doritos, his Atari, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, respectively.) Unlike Stan, Richie wasn’t keeping himself totally closed-off...but he wasn’t allowing himself to be helped, either.

 

“I think maybe if you got a haircut?” Bev was combing her fingers through Richie’s hair one day during one of their frequent smoke-breaks, and brainstorming while she untangled his wild curls. “You have such pretty eyes, Richie, you should let more people see them.”

 

Richie had his eyes closed, and was tapping ash from the end of his cigarette erratically. “You can’t fix ugly. I’ve told you eight trillion times. And don’t tell me I’m not ugly - I don’t need that shit again, Marsh, not from you. I can handle the truth.”

 

“Are you accusing me of lying to you, Tozier?” she demanded, yanking on his hair sharply and taking quiet pleasure in his wince. 

 

“Well, you’re not truthing,” he scowled, eyes drifting to something in the distance. Bev turned to follow his gaze...and of course his eyes had landed on Eddie, who was walking towards them with Bill and laughing about something. Eddie’s hands were gesturing wildly - he was obviously excited about whatever they were talking about - and Bev watched interestedly as Richie’s expression shifted from alert to wistful to just plain sad.

 

She tapped quietly at his shoulder, and he twitched, eyes flicking down in a show of guilt, or confusion, or maybe both. “You like Eddie’s clothes now, hm? You think they’re helping?”

 

“He, um.” Richie swallowed hard, choosing his words uncharacteristically carefully. “He seems happier.”

 

“I think so too,” she replied nonchalantly, lifting her eyes to try and gauge how much longer she’d have Richie’s attention before Bill and Eddie made it into earshot. She gave herself about another minute, and moved into fast-talking mode. “I helped him pick them out, you know.”

 

She could practically feel Richie’s ears perk up - like he was a dog that had just been offered a treat. “Did you, now.”

 

“Could help you out, too,” she offered cooly, “if you wanted to maybe... _ grab someone’s attention _ . If you’re interested, meet me by the bike rack at 2:30.”

 

Richie turned to look at her, a curious smile playing at the edges of his mouth. “What are you scheming?”

 

“Just show up, okay?” she sighed, and right on cue, Eddie and Bill cut into the conversation, yammering about the test they’d had in U.S. History and sucking Richie right into their (Eddie’s) vortex.

 

She figured the odds were about fifty-fifty on Richie actually showing up, so for good measure, she enlisted Ben and Mike to drag him out to the bike rack once the final bell rang.

 

“I could totally break out of this hold, you know,” was the first thing Bev heard Richie tell Mike as he was brought semi-forcibly out towards her.

 

“Yes, Richie, you’re very strong,” Mike lied agreeably. “Bev, here’s your Trashmouth.”

 

They let go of his arms very suddenly, and Richie fell to the ground in surprise.

 

“Thank you both.” Bev beamed at both of them, and they smiled back - Ben even got a little red in the face, which was the cutest fucking thing Bev had maybe ever seen. A phrase lit at the back of her mind - _ my heart burns there? My heart burns there, too? _

 

“I hope you two have a nice time together,” Ben said earnestly, and Bev felt her smile grow even wider.

 

“Oh, we will.” She grabbed Richie’s elbow and yanked him to his feet. “Let’s go, Loser.”

 

\----

 

The next day at school, Richie got attention in the hallways, as usual - but this time, it wasn’t just because he was drawing dicks on lockers. Bev was practically glowing with pride - the between-class whispers were favorable, to say the least.

 

“Is that Richie Tozier?”

 

“Whoa, he pulled his hair back.”

 

“That sweater looks--”

 

“He looks--”

 

_ “Wow.” _

 

“If I didn’t know he was going to make a weird sex joke about our French teacher today, I would totally consider asking him to Homecoming…”

 

“You see?” Bev asked Richie, who had frozen up a little bit...which was to be expected, given that had no context for handling positive attention. “A nice maroon sweater, a pair of black jeans that fit, and voila. Absolutely nothing’s changed, and yet.”

 

“I guess.” Richie rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “This sweater’s really fucking soft, at least. Also, I liked what that girl was saying about the French class sex jokes...glad to see my humor isn’t going unappreciated--”

 

“Whoa, hey, Rich!” The other Losers had caught up to them, and Mike was leading the parade. “Looking good, buddy!”

 

“Wh-who are you and wha-what have you done with Richie T-Tozier?” Bill demanded, smiling. He walked up to Richie and brushed some imaginary dust off of his shoulders. “Bev, you’ve p-performed a miracle.”

 

“I know,” Bev said, allowing herself a small, cocky smirk. “Stan? Thoughts?”

 

Stan, ever a harsh critic, pursed his lips. It was obvious that he was trying to find something to critique and coming up short. Finally, he said, “It’s passable,” and shrugged his shoulders.

 

Bev patted herself on the back for that particular compliment. From Stan, that was a lot...but Richie wasn’t paying any attention to Stan at all, no, his eyes were nervously locked on Eddie, who had brought up the rear of the group and was just now seeing Richie in his new outfit.

 

Bev heard Eddie’s breath catch in his throat, and she had to restrain herself from pumping her fist.

 

_ Nailed it. _

 

“Whaddya think, Eds?” Richie laughed nervously, spinning around crazily like a fashion model on speed. “Hot or not? What’s Sonia K. gonna think?”

 

Eddie tutted quietly at the mention of his mother, but his eyes betrayed how he was really feeling - they were glued to the way Richie’s jeans fit nicely around his scrawny thighs, and the way the sweater cinched in at Richie’s waist. 

 

“You’re so…” he began, color seeping into his face as he tripped over his words, “uh. You’resocute,” he finally finished, words all slurring into one another as he embarrassedly rushed through his sentence.

 

Hope lit up Richie’s features like he was a Christmas tree that had just been plugged in. “What was that, Eds? Say it slower, for the old folks in the back.” He gestured to Stan, and Stan unenthusiastically flipped him off. 

 

Eddie’s whole face and neck were red, now, and it was clashing pretty grossly with his green button-down. Still, to his credit, he repeated his sentence. “You’re so cute,” he said quietly, slow enough this time that his words could be understood.

 

This time, it was Richie’s turn to go red. “Oh!” He smoothed out his sweater eagerly, fidgeting with his hands because he wasn’t really sure what to do with them. “Do you...do you really think that?”

 

“Yeah.” Eddie smiled up at him, sweet and genuine. “I like this look. I like it...um...I like it  _ a lot.” _

 

“Good,” Richie replied, touching his pulled-back hair gently in disbelief. “I mean, uh. Fuck. Thanks.”

 

Eddie giggled, and Bev could practically see Richie’s world start to change.

 

Richie didn’t make any big changes at first, but he did start wearing that sweater at least once a week, which reduced Eddie to a blushing mess every time.

 

Then, Richie started to pull his hair back out of his eyes. This led to a lot of Eddie zoning out during conversations, to the point where Bill wrote him a list of methods he could use to pay better attention and presented it to him in front of everybody. It was a mortifying moment for Eddie, but it had sent Richie’s ego into the stratosphere.

 

After that, Richie started carrying himself differently. He walked more deliberately, he smiled more genuinely - he even seemed to be reining in his vulgarity a little bit. 

 

“Is he sick?” Stan asked Bev after the first week of Changed Richie, concern in his voice.

 

“I think he’s just happy,” Bev replied, smiling back at him. Stan’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline.

 

“Doesn’t sound like Richie.”

 

“And yet,” Bev said, gesturing to where Richie was laughing with Eddie a little further down the hallway. Richie’s arm was slung over Eddie’s shoulders, Eddie was grinning sappily up at him, and love was practically radiating off of the two of them in waves.

 

Stan watched them quietly for a moment. “How did you do it?” he finally asked.

 

“I didn’t do anything,” she told him honestly. “I just showed him a little bit of what I see - or more, of what  _ Eddie _ sees, which I think ended up being the kicker.”

 

“Oh.” Stan considered that. “I know what you think, Bev - about me, that is - and I appreciate it, of course, it’s very kind, but….I’m having a hard time…”

 

Bev’s eyes widened in realization. “Stan. You need an Eddie.”

 

Stan shot her an exasperated look. “I don’t  _ need an Eddie _ , Bev. I just...I don’t…”

 

“Everything all right over here?” Mike had spotted them, and was weaving through the between-class crowds to join them. Bev made to assure Mike that they were perfectly fine, just chatting, but before she got the opportunity, her eyes were drawn to Stanley’s ears.

 

They were bright red.

 

Stan noticed her looking, and sent her an uncharacteristically pleading look. She pantomimed zipping up her lips with her fingers...but mentally, she was already putting together a plan.

 

“We’re fine, Mike,” Stan said, folding his hands in front of him and looking down at his feet. “Thank you for asking.”

 

“If you’re sure,” Mike said carefully, and oh  _ goodness,  _ his cheeks and neck were red too.

 

Bev felt a rush of gratitude sweep through her - for her boys, her beautiful boys, and the opportunity that had just landed in her lap.

 

She’d have them all believing in themselves yet.


	11. Face the Music (Benverly)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Architecture is hard, and Ben Hanscom is overtired, but seeing the barista at the new coffee place near his architecture firm is enough to put a little pep in his step.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "maybe not"

Some days, Ben Hanscom felt like he was out of his mind for choosing architecture.

 

Sure, he was good at it - he always had been. The minute he’d stepped into his drafting elective in high school, he’d known that he had a talent for clean lines and physics and the necessary vision to design something beautiful, tasteful, and in synch with its surroundings. He was an architect. That was what he was going to do.

 

From there, his life followed a prescribed course of actions: down to hot, sweaty Texas to study at Rice University, then up to cold, meticulous MIT for graduate school so he could, at last, land a low-ranking job at a top-ranking firm in New York City. Ben wasn’t sure that he liked New York - he sure as shit didn’t belong there, coming in from ass-nowhere Kansas - but it was where he was supposed to be, career-wise, so...okay.

 

Well...not quite okay. It would be easier to ignore the parts of New York that grated on him if he actually felt like he was going somewhere with his career, but all of the big projects the firm took on seemed to be going to people (if Ben was to be bluntly honest) much less capable than he; Emma from New Hampshire, for example had been hired just after him, had put forward mediocre blueprints for a standard corporate building as the key piece in her portfolio, and had, within a month of being on the job, been pulled for the major midtown renovation that the firm had been commissioned to do. Ben was left to his paperwork and his resentment, and resolved to work harder, push himself further -- but how much further could he go? He barely made it home most nights as it was. Last night, he’d been at work until 3:30 a.m., filing and sketching and re-sketching and thinking, and now, at 7 a.m., he was back to do it all again.

 

_ This is rewarding, _ he reminded himself as he shuffled his way down the sidewalk.  _ This is what you’re good at. _

 

Fuck. No pep-talk was going to be worth anything if he didn’t have coffee. He should have thought about that sooner, because at this point in the trek he’d passed most of his usual java joints - there was only the new place left between him and work, and it wasn’t a chain, it was an independently owned little corner market.

 

He wasn’t big on going out of his comfort zone, particularly where coffee was concerned, but...it was going to have to do for now. He hoped to God they’d grant him the extra espresso he so desperately needed.

 

“Hi, welcome to Maturin Coffee--” the barista began as he walked in ( _ prescribed _ , he thought), and then they made eye contact and all of what was left of Ben’s coherent thought (which wasn’t much, to be fair, after about an hour and a half of sleep) went out the window.

 

There was a lot that could be said about the young woman before him - things that Ben could probably infer about her personality and the store as a whole based on her green turtle knit cap, mint green button-down with lavender stripes, and rainbow apron (that clashed with her red, red hair), but none of that mattered at all, because he was trapped in the pull of her jungle green eyes. 

 

Shit, shit, shit. He didn’t have time for this. There was too much work on his plate for him to be falling in love with every manic pixie dream barista on the block. Shaking his head a little bit to knock himself out of his funk, he approached the counter.

 

“I need something with at least four shots of espresso in it.”

 

The woman raised an eyebrow at him, clearly somewhat bemused. “Four shots, huh? No rest for the weary?” 

 

“Slept for an hour and a half last night,” Ben told her honestly, hoping the truth would make her speed up her work. “Not out of the ordinary for me. Espresso’s gonna keep me alive.”

 

The woman whistled, raking her eyes over Ben’s face with something akin to concern. Instead of asking questions about his personal life, though, as he’d feared she might do, she moved to grab a large cup.

 

“Any particular flavors you like?” she asked him, bringing his cup towards a disorganized jumble of what looked like flavorings and creamers. “Allergies, things I should know, etcetera?”

 

He racked his brain, trying to come up with something on the fly. Most of the baristas he’d  encountered would have just served him four straight shots of espresso in the bottom half of a paper cup, and he found himself almost grateful that this girl was trying to make things nicer for him. Very few people did that, these days (or ever, really, if he was being honest with himself).

 

“I like almond,” he told her, allowing himself one thin, quiet smile. “No allergies.”

 

Her returned grin was a revelation - it stretched her face so brilliantly that his heart couldn’t help but throw itself against the front of his chest like it was trying to get out and reach her and _ holy shit, did he have absolutely no self control whatsoever? _

 

“Coming right up,” she told him, and busied herself with his concoction while he tried to pull himself the fuck together. Squeezing his eyes shut, he tried to focus on the residential project he was building a model for for that day, but found his mind was now completely devoid of anything that didn’t have to do with the spread of freckles across barista girl’s cheeks. Damn it, damn it, damn it. He’d have to try a new strategy for clearing his mind - what was that New Kids on the Block song that had been stuck in his head a couple of weeks ago?  _ Said all that I wanted was you….you made all my dreams come true….. _

 

He was so busy humming softly to himself, he almost didn’t notice her come back with his drink.

 

“Try this,” she said, and he flinched away from her, startled by her sudden reappearance. When he looked back down, she was holding a cardboard cup of coffee up to him with a knowing grin. “I think you’ll find that it has  _ the right stuff. _ ”

 

Ben bit back a groan. “Oh, jeez…”

 

“Nothing to be ashamed of,” she assured him, although the effort she was obviously putting into not laughing suggested otherwise. “We’ve all got a secret crush on Donnie Wahlberg, it’s fine. Take a sip.”

 

Not wanting to embarrass himself further, he took the cup and blew softly on the liquid to cool it down. He sipped slowly...and then sipped again and again and again as fervently as he could without burning the roof of his mouth. 

  
The coffee she’d made him was INCREDIBLE.

 

“What’s in this?” he asked, wide-eyed, and the girl’s grin grew wider.

 

“It’s a secret,” she told him, eyes twinkling merrily.

 

He let out a surprised laugh at that, and promptly clapped a hand over his mouth in wonder - how long had it been since he’d  _ laughed _ ?

 

“Anyways, thank you,” he said, sounding more sincere to his own ears than he had in the past five years at his firm. “This is the best coffee I’ve ever had. How much do I owe you for it, because I’ll pay you twice that, it’s that good--”

 

“Maybe not,” she interrupted him gently, and he spluttered, staring down at her. Didn’t she need the business?

 

“Not...pay you?” he asked, dumbfounded.

 

She shook her head. “You look like you need that coffee more than I need your money. Do me a favor, though?”

 

“Anything,” he said, not realizing until the word was already out of his mouth how absolutely pathetic he sounded. God, she was going to think he was the biggest creep in the world.

 

“Well, two favors, actually,” she amended, and Ben steeled himself, waiting for her to drop the anvil: she had a boyfriend, she never wanted to see him in this shop again, she was filing a restraining order….

 

“Take a vacation or quit your job,” she said instead, and Ben couldn’t help the little gasp of surprise that escaped his lips.

 

“Wh...why?” he asked once he’d regained his bearings, frowning a little bit as he registered that her expression was sincere. She didn’t know what he did, or how hard he’d worked to get there. How could she ask such a thing?

 

“I’ve lived in New York for years, now,” she said, “and before that, I was in small town Maine, so I’m sort of an expert on groups of people that are really, really unhappy with their lives.”

 

“And?” he asked, cataloguing the personal information she’d just shared and wondering what her point was.

 

“You are without a doubt the most miserable looking person I’ve ever seen,” she said, and Ben felt an embarrassed blush sweep its way across his face, ears, and neck. 

 

“Oh,” he said, not sure what else there was _ to _ say.

 

“And I don’t mean that you’re not attractive or anything,” she quickly backpedaled, mirroring his flushed face, “I just mean that you don’t seem….”

 

“Happy?” he asked, thinking quietly about his time at the firm and all the work he’d put in. He’d been trying for such a long time to convince himself that he liked what he was doing...but  _ was _ he happy? Was convincing himself that he was happy something that happy people did?

 

“Yeah,” she agreed, looking at her hands. “Sorry if I overstepped, but.”

  
“It’s fine,” he assured her, still sort of reeling a little bit from all of the new thinking he now knew that he was going to have to do. “What was the second favor, quickly? I’m running late.”

 

“Oh,” the girl said, expression revealing that she’d forgotten that she’d asked for two favors. “Oh, it’s nothing. I was just going to ask you for your name.”

 

Ben’s heart did a quick backflip, and he couldn’t help but let that thin, quiet smile from earlier sneak back on to his face.

 

“Ben,” he told her. “Ben Hanscom.”

 

She seemed to weigh his response in her mind, as if assessing him anew based on his name...and then she smiled, letting him know that he’d come out favorably.

 

“I’m sorry for making you late, Ben Handsome.”

 

“Hanscom,” he corrected quickly, collecting his coffee and willing his blush not to reappear.

 

“I stand by what I said,” she told him with a wink. “I’ll see you around.”

 

Flustered, he stumbled over his own feet and almost spilled his coffee on the way out. He could hear her laughter echoing through the coffeeshop as he tripped his way out the door.

 

It took him another block’s worth of walking to realize that he hadn’t gotten her name in return.

 

He had half a mind to turn around, and he went so far as to stop in the middle of the sidewalk, frantically searching the cup for some sort of contact information.

 

It turned out that she’d been a step ahead of him the whole time. There was a note scrawled in Sharpie on the side of the cup that Ben had been holding.

 

**-coffee’s on me whenever you need it. hang tough. love, Bev Marsh, aka the new (coffee) kid on the block-**

 

She’d put a phone number (presumably her own) under where she’d signed her name, and Ben took a moment to stare at it, mentally committing it to memory.

 

Bev Marsh, he whispered to himself, and smiled quietly at how well the name seemed to match the girl he’d just met - the multicolored, coffee magician that saw right through him with her green, green eyes.

 

For once in his life, he had something to look forward to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> skeletonscribbles.tumblr.com <3


	12. Ophelia (Reddie)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> it's possible to drown outside of the water, if you love a person enough.  
> Eddie Kaspbrak learns this the hard way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the prompt: "you're not very intimidating" :)

“Padiddle.”

 

The word echoed around the empty park in the wake of the roar of a passing car engine.

 

It was a clear, temperate, breezy night in early August, and Eddie Kaspbrak didn’t know too much about normal people and normal towns, but he imagined that if they were anywhere,  _ anywhere  _ else, there would be other people walking or laughing or stargazing or  _ something _ outside with them in the park on an evening like this.

 

The people of Derry, Maine were more comfortable in their houses, where nothing could reach them.

 

Eddie didn’t remember what they were afraid of, really. He knew that at one point, there was a curfew - as tight as Sonia’s leash was now, it had once been tighter - and that he, too, had been afraid, but the specifics of his fear evaded him. Why did the people of Derry have one, two, sometimes even three locks on their doors? What had happened to make him so wary of deep water, or shadows, or creatures lurking under people’s porches?

 

Not that any of that mattered, though - not tonight. Tonight, he was with Richie.

 

It was impossible to be afraid with Richie.

 

(God, he hated that so much - the way Richie made him feel, like all of the evils lurking in the cracks and crevices were just figments of his imagination...like he could face them, somehow…

 

...well, maybe hate wasn’t quite the right word.

 

But did it have to be  _ Richie? _ )

 

“I said padiddle, Eds,” Richie repeated. Eddie couldn’t see his eyes - the low light was causing a disorienting glare off of his glasses. “Take off your shirt.”

 

_ What. _

 

It took Eddie a moment to realize that he wasn’t breathing. When his survival instincts finally, finally kicked in, he was mortified to find that Richie was a step ahead of him. He had Eddie’s pale gray inhaler in the palm of his outstretched hand, excavated from the sweaty depths of his pocket. Eddie could practically smell Richie on it, it had been marinating in Richie’s pants for that long.

 

Eddie used it anyway. He grabbed it from Richie, raised it shakily to his mouth, and pulled the trigger, sucking in copper penny air and trying to ignore the salt taste (Richie taste?!) on the plastic.

 

“What...the FUCK, Richie?” Eddie hissed when he finally felt like he could breathe again, balling his fists to make a show of the anger that he didn’t actually feel.

 

Richie smiled again, but it lacked the smug conviction Eddie was expecting. “That’s the game, Eds. You were in the car the last time we played - you know how it goes. You see a car with a headlight out, you yell ‘padiddle’, everyone else has to remove an article of clothing.”

 

Eddie knew the rules of the game very, very well - they’d only played it every other night that summer, piled into Mike’s truck or Bill’s clunky Ford or whatever Richie called the pile of gears that he,  _ quote unquote _ , drove. Richie and Bill were particularly fond of the game, and would whoop and holler when made to take off any article of clothing that wasn’t socks like the wild, free, naked savages they were. (The two of them were dangerous when left unchecked, and somehow even  _ more _ dangerous with an audience.) Mike was also surprisingly immodest, which left Eddie there as the lone embarrassed idiot - not that he could  _ ever _ say anything about not liking the game, lest they target him for  _ even more embarrassment _ .

 

“You don’t like Padiddle, do you Eds?” Richie asked, discovery and the beginnings of smugness (better late than never, it seemed) evident in his voice.

 

Eddie shrugged and averted his eyes, staring at the base of the park’s bird bath. “It’s fine.”

 

He thought fleetingly of Richie in his boxer shorts in the passenger seat of Bill’s car, head thrown back in laughter and curls wild against the wind blowing through the rolled-down window.

 

He didn’t _ like _ the game, no...but he didn’t hate it, either.

 

“You  _ hate _ it,” Richie said, and Eddie knew that Richie’s eyes were widening in glee, he just  _ knew  _ it, but he couldn’t look now - if he made eye contact, or any contact, really, the teasing would begin and he’d be forced to endure all the usual Richie-isms.

 

“It doesn’t matter, Richie,” Eddie said, wincing at how whiny the words sounded coming out of his mouth.

 

“I wish you’d said something earlier,” Richie replied, and that was enough to make Eddie look back ( _always a Eurydice, he thought despairingly - never an Orpheus)_. Was Richie feeling remorse? Was he  _ capable _ of remorse?

 

Eddie couldn’t read the expression he found on Richie’s face, but that was normal. No one could read Richie, not really. Bill thought he could, and Richie also thought that Bill could, but Eddie had observed his friends for long enough to know that they were both masters of lying to themselves - in fact, they were so good at it that neither of them knew they were doing it anymore.

 

Someone else (red hair?) had once come close to knowing Richie, and a different somebody (big nose, curls?) had come close to knowing Bill, but Eddie didn’t remember more about it than that. At the moment, his mind wasn’t capable of doing much more than (weakly) trying to convince his eyes to stay off of the the slope of Richie’s collarbones and the way Richie’s black t-shirt was stuck a little bit in one place near the waistband of his jeans, like he’d gone to the bathroom and wound up with half his shirt tucked in when he pulled his pants back up, and no one had bothered to tell him.

 

Actually, that was probably exactly what happened. As unpredictable as Richie was sometimes, there were certain things about him that were shockingly steadfast.

 

“Does that mean you won’t make me play anymore?” Eddie asked, training his eyes on where Richie’s glasses were sliding off of his nose.

 

Richie sighed, rounding off to face Eddie, and Eddie braced himself for the worst - whatever the hell that wound up being this time.

 

Bracing could only do so much in the face of Richie’s worst - and it was worse than last time, worse than ever, because Richie was taking off his own shirt now, and it was all Eddie could do not to melt into the grass out of sheer mortification.

 

God, he wished he weren’t the way he was.

 

“I don’t understand,” Eddie said, trying to keep his voice level - but it was a fruitless attempt and he knew it. He sounded like middle-school Bill amost as soon as he opened his mouth.

 

“Figured you might hate it less if we were both half-naked,” Richie said. He stepped closer tentatively, as if he were asking permission to enter Eddie’s personal sphere. Eddie didn’t move - he just shared at Richie’s ratty old shoes, willing his heart back into his chest.

 

Eddie couldn’t remember all of what he’d lost over the course of his life, but he had a really distinctive feeling that it was a lot, and an even more distinctive feeling that he was one wrong move - one idiotic outburst or lingering gaze away from losing Richie, too, and that...would be the end of everything. Bill was like a brother to him, sure, and Mike was his rock, but he’d had surrogate brothers and rocks and all of that in other people already, and even if he couldn’t remember the details of how or why, he’d lost them, and he’d survived. If he lost Mike...hell, even if he lost Bill, he’d survive.

 

His heart couldn’t handle losing Richie, and he knew the exact reason why. Unfortunately, that reason was probably the thing that was going to send everything crumbling to the ground.

 

“Why are you making a big deal out of this, Richie?” Eddie asked, shifting his eyes up to Richie’s forearms and swallowing hard. Richie took another tentative step in his direction.

 

“Because,” Richie said like it was obvious. “You shouldn’t feel bad, you know?”

 

He sounded uncharacteristically serious, and Eddie couldn’t help but search his face, hunting for hidden meaning. He knew what he wanted the phrase to mean, but this was Richie - everything was going to be more difficult than it needed to be.

 

Still, Eddie supposed he could at least take the comment at face value. He pulled his shirt up and over his head, pretending it didn’t bother him when it caught on his love handles.

 

“Laugh and I’ll kill you,” Eddie said as threateningly as he could manage, covering his stomach with his hands.

 

Richie smiled wryly, but to his credit, he heeded Eddie’s request. “You’re not very intimidating, Eds.”

 

Eddie sighed. “I know.”

 

“And that wasn’t what I was talking about when I said you shouldn’t feel bad. Although…” Richie took a third step forward, moving himself squarely into Eddie’s space, and reached for Eddie’s wrists. Eddie let Richie gently guide Eddie’s hands away from his his stomach and hips, effectively exposing his whole torso, and felt a miserable mixture of emotions settle into his stomach - chiefly, embarrassment over his own body, and guilt for the amount that he still  _ wanted  _ \- even with his body the way it was, even with the asthma, even though he knew it was wrong.

 

“Richie, stop talking in riddles,” Eddie begged, knowing it was futile - Richie had talked in riddles since he was twelve, since curfew summer or maybe before, probably before, Eddie didn’t remember, couldn’t remember anything, god fucking damn it.

 

Richie smiled, and moved a hand up to rest delicately against Eddie’s cheek - like a butterfly, or perhaps more accurately, like he was afraid that Eddie was going to rip his arm off if he pressed too close.

 

Eddie instinctively reached for his inhaler, but Richie caught his wrist again with his other hand.

 

“Don’t feel bad,” he said again, and then he was leaning in, and Eddie felt his blood turn on like someone had flipped the switch on a generator. With that being the case, it was a small wonder that Richie didn’t electrocute himself on Eddie’s mouth when their lips finally touched (a light brush, a sweet thing), and Eddie wondered (not for the first time) if Richie was magic, if he’d deflected all of Eddie’s nervous electric energy away with a blink of his eyes and a flick of his wrist.

 

Richie pulled back first. When Eddie opened his eyes, he found Richie studying his face, seemingly looking for something specific in it. He seemed satisfied with what he found there, and moved to touch his forehead to Eddie’s. His glasses slid down and bumped against Eddie's nose, and Eddie realized with sudden, bizarre panic that said glasses must have been pressing into Eddie’s face when they kissed; he hoped they hadn’t left a stupid mark.

 

“I feel like I’m drowning,” Eddie said numbly.

 

Richie laughed, tilting his head back. Night was really starting to set in - Eddie could see stars reflected in his glasses.

 

“I feel that way most days,” Richie said to the sky.

 

The statement alarmed Eddie more than it comforted him. He grabbed on to the front of Richie’s t-shirt, knowing and not caring that it was a desperate move.

 

Another car with only one headlight lit sped by, and they leapt apart, shoving their hands into their pockets.

 

They stared at each other for a few strange seconds, but Richie was almost immediately bored with that. He started moving back towards his car.

 

“Eddie my love,” he said grandly, turning back over his shoulder to fix Eddie with a rock star smile, “padiddle. Get in the car and take off your pants.”

 

Eddie touched his mouth with his fingertips, took a deep breath, and headed over to open the passenger side door.

 

\----

 

(When the Toziers moved away the next fall, they took with them all of Eddie’s memories of Richie’s head thrown back in laughter in the front seat of Bill’s car, and left a crushing, unexplainable emptiness in Eddie’s chest that could only be remedied, as far as Eddie had discovered, but the appearance of a car with one front headlight out.

 

It was a stupid reason to become a mechanic.

 

Eddie couldn’t remember, but he was sure he’d done stupider.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let me know what you think about this one. I was thinking about Hamlet and forgetting and nervousness and the Lumineers when I wrote it, and I'm a little bit worried that it'll only make sense to me.
> 
> skeletonscribbles.tumblr.com <3


	13. Crowd Control (Stozier)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richie Tozier does everything in a big, space encompassing way.
> 
> Stanley Uris does not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: "Well, the probability of that is zero, but you go ahead"

It was an indisputable fact that, of all the Losers (the unofficial nickname for the small subset of Bowdoin College’s LGBTQA+ club that hung out together regularly), Stanley Uris took up the least amount of space.

 

Stan, for his part, was pretty proud of his compactness. It was a testament to his values: a place for everything, and everything in its place (and never mind that it was also physical evidence of his more compulsive behaviors; that was between him and his therapist, thank you very much).

 

The rest of them were pretty moderate in their habits around space. Mike was probably a distant second for ‘person who spreads out the least’, and Bill and Eddie tended to have a bit more mess than most, but for the most part, their group was pretty average in the space department, and Stan was fine with that.

 

Stan was  _ not _ fine with the habits of one Richie Tozier, king of clutter and master of making himself as large as possible.

 

Richie Tozier took up more space than anyone that Stan had ever met.

 

Stan hated that Richie was such a big presence. He hated the way that heads would turn towards Richie when he walked into a room. He hated the way that Richie spread his legs when he sat down and completely crowded the people around him.

 

Most of all, though, Stan hated that he, in a moment of Bill Denbrough induced weakness (they all had them), had been the one to agree to room with Richie in the dorms for sophomore year. He hated how Richie’s stuff had gradually migrated over the course of the year into Stan’s space - the room was more of a 70/30 split now than a 50/50 split, and Richie gained more ground every day. He hated that Richie had people with him all the time. It didn’t matter if said people were Losers or not. Stan’s room was his sacred space, and Richie was expanding his way into ruining that for him.

 

Hell, Richie couldn’t even restrict himself to one  _ bed _ . Stan had walked in that morning after his second-to-last microeconomics class to find Richie sprawled all over his bedspread, boredly flipping channels on Stan’s small television.

 

Unfortunately, it was late enough in the semester that Stan didn’t even have the energy to be mad. He sighed, dropped his bag by the door, and wobbled towards Richie exhaustedly.

 

“You have your own bed,” he pointed out flatly, and Richie jumped.

 

“Oh!” A gigantic grin stretched easily over Richie’s face, and Stan had to stop himself from rolling his eyes - even his _ smile _ was big. “Stan my man! They took  _ Chopped _ off of Netflix - I wanted to see if it was on Food Network right now.”

 

“It’s not,” Stan said, too tired to pretend that he didn’t know the entire weekday Food Network lineup. “Not until noon. It’s  _ The Kitchen _ until 11, then it’s  _ Cupcake Wars _ , THEN it’s  _ Chopped _ .”

 

“Oh.” Richie thought about that for a second, and decided it was acceptable. “Dope. What channel?”

 

“Twenty-two,” Stan said helplessly.

 

“Cool.” Richie flipped to the appropriate channel. Geoffrey Zakarian was talking about the benefits of fresh pasta, which seemed to satisfy Richie - he nodded and patted the bed next to him. “You in?”

 

Stan looked quickly over at Richie’s bed. What he really needed was a nap, but he didn’t trust Richie’s hygiene habits well enough to sleep in the other bed...so his own bed with the annoying addition of Richie was going to have to do.

 

“Scoot over,” Stan instructed, gesturing with his hands. “Close your legs, Princess, you’re taking up the whole fucking bed.”

 

Richie chuckled and acquiesced (but only slightly; Stan still barely had any room). “Sassy Stan today, huh?”

 

“Sleepy Stan,” Stan corrected, climbing on to the bed and trying to get as comfortable as he could while taking up as little space as possible. 

 

“Ahh, cute.” Richie sighed happily and flung his arms out. Stan noticed with no small amount of irritation that one had landed obnoxiously close to the top of Stan’s head.

 

They silently watched Katie Lee start to make a sauce for a few minutes before Stan figured it was time to seize his chance. He started to sink down in his seat, maneuvering himself into a laying-down position.

 

Naturally, as soon as Stan’s head hit the pillow, Richie decided that he was finished keeping his mouth shut.

 

“Eddie’s in your Micro class, right?” he asked, bouncing his leg restlessly.

 

Stan squinted up in confusion. He didn’t think Richie knew anything about the classes he was taking. “Yeah. Why?”

 

“He still sitting next to that Luke kid?”

 

Ah. That was why.

 

“You’ve been spying,” Stan accused.

 

“A little,” Richie admitted. “But not today.”

 

Stan debated offering up the information in exchange for Richie leaving the bed, but ultimately decided to be nice.

 

“He is,” Stan confirmed. “Time to get over your crush.”

 

“Yeah?” Richie was scowling; Stan had obviously touched a nerve. “Then maybe you should get over  _ your _ crush on Bill ‘Girl of the Week’ Denbrough.”

 

“You have a crush on Bill, too,” Stan reminded him, and Richie groaned, throwing an arm over his face.

 

“What a mess,” Richie mumbled. “Two out of three options, dead fucking ends.”

 

Stan sat up a little bit. Richie had pontificated for what felt like years on the subjects of Eddie and Bill, but he’d never mentioned a third person.

 

“Three?” Stan asked carefully.

 

Richie nodded, turning back towards Stan with an expression that Stan knew meant that he was going to deflect with a joke. “Yep. Bill and Eddie are lost causes, but I think I’ve got a pretty good shot with your mother--”

 

Stan elbowed him in the stomach and took pleasure in his startled wheeze. “Go fuck yourself, Tozier. Not in my bed, though.”

 

“Too late,” Richie said, winking at him. Stan groaned and sank back down, scooting as far away from Richie as he possibly could.

 

“Disgusting.”

 

A few more moments of silence passed before Stan couldn’t help but ask, “Is it Bev?”

 

Richie’s response to that was to make himself larger on the bed, opening his legs wide enough that his thigh was pressed against Stan’s. Stan nudged at his ankle to get him to scoot back, but Richie, to Stan’s dismay, was harder to move than he looked. Sighing, Stan resigned himself to the weird touching and closed his eyes, waiting for Richie’s verbal response.

 

“Surprised you’re taking an interest in this,” Richie finally said. “You usually don’t give a shit about my shit.”

 

Stan thought about that. Richie was right. Usually Stan  _ didn’t _ give a shit about Richie. Or, at least...Stan gave a shit, but only when Richie was doing something that annoyed him. Which was all the time.

 

Huh. Maybe Stan did give a shit.

 

“Just curious,” Stan said, shrugging.

 

“Me too,” said Richie, and he muted the TV, looking over expectantly. Stan looked over, bewildered - what had he missed?

 

“You too...what…?” Stan asked slowly.

 

“I’m curious, too.” Richie’s grin was almost all the way up to his ears. It was making Stan’s stomach churn. “What about you, Stanny? Anyone special in your life?”

 

Ugh. Of course Richie wanted that, too - to expand his way into every crack and crevice of Stan’s brain.

 

“Why are you the way that you are?” Stan snapped, trying to look less embarrassed than he felt.

 

“Tell you what,” Richie continued, undeterred, “If I guessed it, would you tell me?”

 

Stan considered his options. On the one hand, Richie already knew about his most obvious crush - and that was fine. Every single one of them had a crush on Bill. On the other hand…

 

...no. There wasn’t an other hand. What other crushes did he have, really?

 

“Well, the probability of that is zero,” Stan said, trying to make himself sound as disinterested as possible, “but you go ahead.”

 

Richie lit up. He rolled over onto his side, leaning even further into Stan’s space, and Stan was surprised to find that he was at peace with it, at least for now.

 

He must be more tired than he thought.

 

“Is it that girl I see you with sometimes after your field statistics class?” Richie guessed, bouncing the bed a little bit. “I forgot her name. Curly hair.”

 

Stan shook his head, burrowing a little bit farther into his blanket. “Patty’s cool. We’re just study partners, though. Girls are…”

 

“Right,” Richie remembered, “right. So Bev’s out, too.”

 

Stan snorted. “I wish I had a crush on Bev.”

 

“Same.” Richie looked past Stan wistfully. “That’d be so fun. But no. So. Mike?”

 

That gave Stan a little pause. For all intents and purposes, he should have a crush on Mike. Mike was handsome, kind, and everything he touched seemed to blossom - his life was like the campus greenhouse that he spent most of his time in.

 

And yet…

 

“Not Mike,” Stan said.

 

Richie raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Oh. Huh. Well. You also starin’ at Eds in Micro?”

 

Stan rolled his eyes. “ _ No. _ God, that would be a disaster. Eddie’s so nervous.”

 

Richie laughed at that. “So you’re looking for someone less tightly wound than you are, then? That still leaves a lot of people.”

 

“Fuck you,” Stan said emptily, and closed his eyes again. Richie probably meant to be fucking with him in crowding his personal space, but all he was doing was making Stan sleepier. Richie was really warm.

 

“Is it Ben, then?” Richie asked. “Straight ol’ Ben? Do you like his secret poetry that he thinks the rest of us don’t know about? Or is it his beard--”

 

“It’s not Ben,” Stan interrupted, feeling his face start to burn for reasons he wasn’t quite in touch with. “His poetry is good, but it’s...I don’t know. I’m not romantic.”

 

“I don’t know about that.” Somehow, Richie had moved even closer. Stan could feel Richie’s breath on his cheek. “So, who is it, then?”

 

“I don’t know anybody else,” Stan said shortly, pulling the blanket up a little more in an attempt to signal to Richie that the conversation was over.

 

Richie laughed right into Stan’s ear, soft and low, and Stan couldn’t help but shiver. “You do know someone else.”

 

Ugh. Richie was out of his mind. Who else could it possibly be? Stan didn’t interact with anyone unless they were one of his six friends or he was forced to talk to them for class purposes.

 

“You’re an idio--” Stan began to say, but was interrupted by Richie’s mouth on his mouth.

 

Stan was a little surprised that his body’s first reaction wasn’t to pull away, but it seemed inevitable that Richie was kissing him, somehow - inevitable for Richie to claim the last bit of space in the room that wasn’t already his.

 

But there was something implicit in Richie’s kiss - an understanding, or maybe even an expectation. Richie wanted Stan to take up some space, too. 

 

With that understanding firmly planted in his brain, Stan made the choice to kiss back...and Richie lit up under his fingertips. There was a minute’s worth of trying to figure out how to move together - the kiss was clumsy, and both of them knew that they could do better, but their styles were so opposite that they had to take some time to adjust.

 

Richie pulled back first with a triumphant smile. “Hah. Guessed your crush.”

 

Stan rolled his eyes, but couldn’t seem to keep a smile off of his face. “Whatever. And what does that make me? Your  _ third  _ choice, after Bill and Eddie?”

 

Richie tensed. “Stan, no - you’re not...you’re...you’re whatever you wanna be. Okay?”

 

Stan figured that was the best answer he was going to get for the time being.

 

“I want to be asleep,” he finally said, closing his eyes for what he hoped would be the final time.

 

Richie exhaled loudly. “Okay.” He began climbing out of the bed, trying and failing to not jostle Stan in the process.

 

Stan pushed him back down.

 

He didn’t open his eyes, but he could almost feel Richie’s brain going into overdrive. He was shuffling around beside Stan, obviously lost for what to do.

 

Stan decided to take pity on him.

 

“Stay,” he suggested, and Richie stilled.

 

“Stay?” Richie repeated, unsure.

 

“Stay,” Stan confirmed, leaning into Richie’s side and spreading a little bit.

 

It was impossible to remain compact with Richie Tozier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> skeletonscribbles.tumblr.com!
> 
> this is my first time taking a crack at Stozier, also, so constructive criticism is very welcome.

**Author's Note:**

> <3
> 
> skeletonscribbles.tumblr.com


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